Community centers face unique challenges when it comes to approving and tracking guests and volunteers. There could be hundreds of visitors and volunteers entering the center each week and they all have various reasons for being there. Whatever the reason and whoever they are, you must confirm they are not a threat to your center or anyone in your buildings.
Visitor‑management systems help you decide—within seconds—whether someone should enter your buildings:
Volunteers are the lifeblood of community centers, yet manual approval processes slow everyone down. An automated volunteer‑management system can:
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This 3-part case study focuses on three YMCAs:
Every community center needs a volunteer program that details how you will recruit volunteers and manage applications and background checks. You also need to stay in compliance with state laws, confirm each volunteer is approved to be in your buildings, create and schedule events, and report on all activity.
These tasks can be extremely time-consuming, especially when done manually.
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Volunteer Management Video
Watch on-demand as Debra Blossom, Volunteer Services Department Manager at Hillsborough County Public Schools (FL), Kyle Garner, Director of Strategic Alliances at JDP (background checks), and Arsalan Mumtaz, Product Owner at Raptor Technologies, give you a closer look at this powerful solution, now enhanced to deliver a safer and more streamlined volunteer experience.
Writing your visitor and volunteer management policy is a critical step in safeguarding your community center from unwanted entrants. Safety should be the number one consideration.
There are nearly one million registered sex offenders and even more individuals with other criminal charges in the United States. Some community centers, most commonly religious centers, are prone to threats of violence.
It’s important that anyone who has criminal charges or who has made a threat against the center or committed violence towards the center is not allowed entry.
Screening visitor information against custom databases of banned visitors is a reliable way to stop individuals who have threatened—or harmed—your center from re‑entering. Having robust volunteer screening catches disqualifying histories before service begins.
“I’m able to manage more than 30,000 volunteers, process 6,000 new applications, help applicants or volunteers with any questions, complete the necessary screenings, and do all of this by myself,” Randle Evett says of using Raptor Volunteer Management.
According to the Summit Area YMCA, introducing the Raptor system supports its mission to provide top‑tier hospitality and safety.
If a visitor’s information matches someone on the sex offender registry or a custom database, it’s important to thoroughly review their information before confirming whether it’s a match. This can be nerve-wracking, especially when the visitor is standing right in front of you. When a visitor’s information matches an entry on a sex‑offender registry or custom banned list, staff should follow a clear, step‑by‑step protocol:
Reviewing Volunteer Criminal Background Alerts
If a volunteer applicant’s check discovers criminal record in your volunteer management system, the system should ideally alert you so that you can review the results. It should also capture all the volunteers who need manual review in a queue for easy access. This allows the community center employee to review the details and approve or deny the applicant. Note that volunteer background checks are not instantaneous like the sex offender registry screening.
When a report flags an applicant, community center staff should follow this process:
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Best Practices to Streamline Your Volunteer Program.
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Automated visitor management systems record and maintain every visitor’s details and make such data instantly accessible to approved personnel so they can create accurate reports. An integrated visitor‑and‑volunteer platform automatically records every sign‑in so you can:
In your visitor management system, you may want to track different information depending on why the individual is visiting. While this field may not be applicable for other roles, like member guests or guardians, setting different data fields for contractors, guests, guardians, and volunteers allows your center to generate customized reports to your needs.
For example:
Every community center measures success a little differently. A modern visitor‑management platform should make that customization effortless:
When seconds matter, you need critical data at your fingertips. Look for a solution that can:
TIP: Provide responders with current floorplans and clearly labeled doors so they reach the right location without delay.
Integrating a volunteer‑management module closes the gap between visitor and volunteer workflows and keeps your rosters continuously up to date:
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Product – Raptor Volunteer Management System
Simplify your volunteer process with an online application, time tracking, event management, and robust reporting.
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See why Raptor is the leading provider in integrated school safety software solutions.
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