Last updated by Kasey Murphy on 09/02/2022

If you’ve ever needed to approve volunteer hours before, you know how much of a pain it can be. If you’ve ever been a volunteer that needed to get their hour log sheet signed, you know how stressful it can be if you lost that sheet, or if you forgot to get the signature. 

Approving and verifying volunteer hours is important for many organizations, as they want to see their volunteers were working with a credible organization for a credible cause. In addition, many organizations use their volunteer hour totals for grants, so these volunteer hours cannot be made up - which is where the standard volunteer log sheet with signatures has come into play. 

If you have used a volunteer log sheet with signatures, there are a few different ways it might have been incorporated into your volunteer program. 

1. Volunteers note their hours on a communal volunteer log sheet and sign their own signature to showcase a “trust” element. 

2. Volunteers have their own volunteer log sheet that they take with them to volunteer activities. On this volunteer log sheet, organizers of the volunteer activities can sign and give their information if further verification is required. 

3. Volunteers write the number of hours they spent at a certain location volunteering and attach a letter or information, as well as a signature of the organizer or witness of the volunteer activity. 

No matter which way a volunteer log sheet with signatures is used, there are some issues. 

To start, all of these sheets are probably paper and handwritten. The obvious issues that come with a paper volunteer log sheet with signatures are: 

• It is easy to lose 

• Handwriting is hard to read

• Signatures can easily be forged

Next, volunteer hour log sheets with signatures are easy to fake. Even though there is a signature, this still does not make the volunteer hour credible - isn’t that the whole point? 

And lastly, most of the volunteer data will still need to be calculated manually. And, there is a long process of approving and rejecting the hours, reaching out to the volunteers, and more. 

There Is A Way That Is More Efficient! 

Track It Forward is a digital volunteer time tracking system that enables volunteer programs to quickly and efficiently track volunteer time, pull reports, and best of all - verify volunteer hours! 

Track It Forward has multiple options for volunteer time tracking, and with each of these options comes the opportunity for administrators to approve hours. Administrators of a volunteer program can look at the details of a volunteer hour log and decide if they wish to approve the hour or reject it. 

If you choose, within the hour log there can be advanced verification features that help administrators and coordinators quickly identify if the hour is credible or not. These features are: 

• A photo attachment of proof 

• An organizer’s digital signature

• A GPS pin dropped while volunteering

All of these features will definitely help prove that a volunteer did their work as a volunteer, and will allow the organization to use these hours towards resources and in their reports. 

Track It Forward’s Advanced Verification feature is the ultimate alternative to a paper volunteer log sheet with signatures. 

Instead of having paper sheets that volunteers lose, volunteers log their hours and get proof of their volunteering through the mobile app of Track It Forward. Then, administrators can either verify and approve hours on their mobile device, or on a desktop version of Track It Forward.

In addition, Track It Forward makes it easy for volunteer programs to instantly pull reports and check in on their volunteers to ensure that they are volunteering. 

A volunteer log sheet with signatures is a great idea and a great step towards having a credible and efficient volunteer time tracking system, but Track It Forward is better - there is simply less room for human error, and less time is spent on manually tracking volunteers!