Last updated by Kasey Murphy on 09/02/2022

Volunteer programs in national parks are such a powerhouse of independent volunteers. Volunteers in national parks are able to help connect the community to the national park and conserve its wild beauty. 

Volunteer programs within national parks can work with events, trails, land maintenance, camp maintenance, rule enforcement, protection, and even design and decoration within the park! One thing we know for sure is that national park volunteer programs do A LOT of different things, and it is all dependent on what type of national park, the volunteer program could be confusing and complex! 

If this is the case, your national park is the perfect candidate for volunteer software. Especially the kind of software that can help distinguish volunteer activities into different categories! 

But, this article will be going through how if your volunteer program in a national park helps to keep park trails clean and safe, or if volunteers help monitor the wildlife in the national park. We know that many national parks have volunteers that walk around the park or work in their leisurely time to help report problems or issues within the park.

Well, it turns out that our volunteer time tracking software can actually help national parks and volunteers better communicate these issues that arise in the park! 

Our software allows volunteers, or individuals, to drop a GPS pin location, along with the date and a photo into a submission. Then, the submission will go to an admin or a park ranger, or whoever your national park designates as the administrator of the park issues. And then, the issue can be handled and marked as approved! 

Now, although this was not the way our time tracking software was designed to function - it works great for national parks and parks divisions! Just read this success story of a parks division doing exactly what we just described! 

This could be an extremely useful way for national parks to communicate with volunteers on issues that are pointed out throughout the park. 

For example, let’s say two volunteers are going for a walk around the park trails. All of a sudden, they notice a tree is about to fall over, and if there is a storm soon it will probably fall and obstruct the path. 

They can quickly pull out their phone, log into the Track It Forward mobile app, and fill out a form that showcases the date and what time they saw it, a photo, and an exact GPS location of their location when they saw the issue. Then, a park volunteer coordinator, park ranger, or any other leader can see that an issue was logged, check it out, and try to fix it before it becomes an issue! 

Using the Track It Forward app is an extremely easy way to track issues or new observations within national parks. National park volunteer programs everywhere could use this as a simple way to communicate with park leaders. 

In addition, Track It Forward is a volunteer time tracking app. So, national parks can easily track volunteer time. 

Tracking volunteer time will help ANY volunteer program analyze: 

• Which initiatives volunteers are putting the most effort into

• The value of volunteers 

• Which volunteers need more encouragement

• How volunteers react working towards a goal

• And more! 

Having a volunteer time tracking system might be important for your national park volunteer program to assess how volunteers can truly impact and benefit your national park! 

And, if you want to have a volunteer time tracking tool and an issue tracker all in one for your national park, Track It Forward is your answer!