Think of it like this:
Groups are how you organize volunteers, programs are how you organize your events. Groups are formed based on the volunteers that have joined your organization. You can create events where you only invite the members of a group.
Programs are created for a series of certain events. For example, if you are a nonprofit that has a food bank and you distribute meals to unhoused people, you can make programs to organize your events for volunteering at the food bank or volunteering with your homeless outreach. Participants of the program are volunteers who independently signed up for the event—they do not have to be members of a group.
Group Functionality:
- Organize volunteers based off of certain useful attributes (grades, skills, availability, company affiliation, interests, etc.)
- Mass invite users to groups
- Create private events for a group that only its members will have access to
- Add notes for the group
- Email the group
Note: individual volunteers do not have information about the group.
Program Functionality:
- Export program volunteer data via CSV
- Users can view program details and have access to events within that program
- Volunteers can add hours to the programs
- Admins can manage volunteers hours for specific programs with POINT Pro
- You can create separate website pages for each program
Explanation of graphic:
In this example, Mohammed and Shelby are our organization admins and Julia is our volunteer. Julia is on the Board of Directors, is Background Checked, and helps out with both the food pantry and the mentoring program. Mohammed runs all the Food Pantry events and Shelby manages Board relations.
Groups: Groups are groups of volunteers and admins.
Programs: Programs are a way to group events and volunteers. This makes it easy to keep management and reporting separate for different initiatives or admin responsibilities your nonprofit has.
Questions? Email us at support@pointapp.org.