Accountability sounds like project management in a business, right? Does this belong in a volunteer organization? Isn't volunteering supposed to be fun and not remind everybody of work? All true, but, you can keep volunteers accountable while making it positive at the same time.

No volunteer organizer wants to hound volunteers and make sure they're meeting requirements. It has negativity written all over it and no volunteer or volunteer organizer wants to go through that type of confrontation. But alas, the work must get done, and some volunteer organizations require volunteer hours to even operate in exchange for some type of membership. Thankfully we can remove any headache through this with the help of technology.

By creating a clear expectation on time and allowing a volunteer to see their own progress, you will no longer have to do a lot of that accountability. Volunteers prefer to self-regulate themselves but sometimes it's just not clear on how to do that. Providing volunteers a structure to log hours gives them that feedback loop to do that type of self-regulation. Let them see their own progress, let them log their own hours, let them know when they need to log more hours, but do that all automatically.

The best part is, every time someone volunteers with this new structure, you now have the opportunity to appreciate them while approving their hours. Every interaction turns into a great interaction and positive reinforcement.