Imagine you have a church pancake supper fundraiser coming up tomorrow.
You've ordered all the syrup, batter, and sausage and convinced six enthusiastic volunteers to help you cook up and serve the food, collect donations, and help clean up afterward.
But then the bad news starts to roll in.
One of your volunteers can't make it because their kid's soccer team made it to the city championship. Another couple is out because they weren't able to get a babysitter after all. What's worse? It turns out that babysitter was also supposed to be one of your volunteers, and she had triple booked herself. She's playing soccer in the city championship and forgot she had signed up to help at the pancake supper.
Suddenly, your team of six volunteers is down to you and an elderly couple, who were forbidden by their doctor to be near a hot skillet. So, who's going to flip the flippin' pancakes?
You have a problem, and it's not just unpredictable volunteers.
You need an easy to use church volunteer scheduling software option to facilitate communication and task management, and we're here to help.
Easy to use church volunteer scheduling software
You're already busy enough trying to manage everything going on at your church. So the last thing you need is scheduling software that takes forever to learn and use. That's why we picked out these five options that you can put to use scheduling your volunteers right away.
I found these options by starting with Capterra's Top 20 Most User-Friendly Church Management Software list. Then, I checked the features lists of the top products to make sure they include a volunteer management feature.
Here's what I found, listed in order of user-friendliness score, based on our research, which factors in time and clicks to complete a series of tasks (including creating a small group and adding a member). Other factors affecting the score include customer service options and user reviews.
1. ChurchTrac
User-friendliness score: 90
ChurchTrac takes the top spot on our most user-friendly list, and it's also the second most affordable church management software, based on our research.
The company, based in Jacksonville, Florida, added an events interface—which includes volunteer management, facilities management, and event registration—in November of 2016.
Through the events interface, you can create public events that anyone can sign up for—a community open house, for example—or private events that are only open to a specific group of people, such as members of your church or a group of child-care providers.
You can then assign volunteers to a specific event, monitor which volunteers have responded or are unable to serve, and view conflicts if a volunteer is assigned to overlapping events.
Emailing volunteers in ChurchTrac Online
Price
ChurchTrac's pricing is based on the number of names in your system. The nice thing about this is that it can grow as your church grows, and you're only paying for what you need. After a free 30-day trial, ChurchTrac costs:
Smaller Church plan: $5/month for up to 75 names
Small Church plan: $10/month for up to 125 names
Medium Church plan: $20/month for up to 250 names
Large Church plan: $30/month for up to 500 names
Mega Church plan: $40/month for up to 1,000 names
If you manage to outgrow even the Mega Church plan, it's an extra $10 per month for every 1,000 names after the first 1,000. If you pay by the year, you get two months for free.
Additional features: In addition to volunteer management, all of ChurchTrac's plans include attendance tracking, check-in, online giving, event management, and membership management. The Finances package—if you want accounting, budgeting, and payroll features—is an extra $4/month or $40/year.
Have you tried ChurchTrac? Leave a review!
2. Breeze ChMS
User-friendliness score: 86
Like ChurchTrac, Breeze ChMS is an easy-to-use, affordable church management system. It comes in at No. 8 on our most affordable list. The Grand Rapids, Michigan-based company was founded by a pastor who wanted to create church management software that was designed to be "insanely" easy to use for small and midsize churches.
The Breeze ChMS volunteer management feature works with the events and calendar interface, allowing you to create events and then schedule volunteers. Once you have an event set up with volunteers assigned, you can set automatic reminders to be sent out, and get RSVP notifications when someone responds.
You can also give certain groups of people a tag in the system—for example, "Pancake Chefs"—then use that tag to organize and communicate with your volunteers.
Creating a new tag for Children's Ministry Volunteers in Breeze ChMS
Price
Breeze ChMS tries to make its pricing as easy to understand as the software.
It's $50/month for unlimited names and users, and that price includes setup, all features, updates, and support.
Additional features: In addition to volunteer management, Breeze ChMS includes attendance tracking, calendar management, check-in, donation management, event management, and membership management. They do not have built-in accounting, but Breeze ChMS integrates with QuickBooks.
Have you tried Breeze ChMS? Leave a review!
3. Elexio
User-friendliness score: 83
Elexio's roots go all the way back to 1984 in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Its core church management system, called Community ChMS, is where you'll find the volunteer management features.
Using Elexio's group management and integrated calendar, you can create an unlimited number of volunteer groups, assign them tasks, communicate with them via email, phone, or text, reserve rooms and resources, and receive notifications when volunteers respond.
Adding volunteers to an event in Elexio
Price
Elexio does not have a predetermined pricing structure, but its customized plans start at $50/month, and it offers a free on-demand tour of the software on its website. You can contact an Elexio "Solution Consultant" to get a better idea of how much Elexio would cost for your church.
Additional features: Elexio's church management system includes all the standard features, such as attendance tracking, calendar, and event and group management. It also has a Partner Plus plan, starting at $179/month, which adds features such as check-in, website management, online giving, accounting, background checks, and group texts.
Have you tried Elexio? Leave a review!
4. Church Office Online
User-friendliness score: 79
Church Office Online, which is based just outside of Seattle, is—like ChurchTrac and Breeze—designed with simplicity and affordability in mind. It comes in at No. 5 on our most affordable list.
You can manage volunteers within Church Office Online by using the calendar tool, which allows you to assign volunteers to events, and reserve rooms and resources.
With Church Office Online's free mobile app, volunteers can view events on the calendar, sign up to serve, and send group messages from anywhere. In other words, you don't need to be sitting at a computer to use Church Office Online.
The calendar view in Church Office Online
Price
Church Office Online's pricing is based on the number of records, or names, you need to track.
$25/month for up to 60 records
$40/month for up to 250 records
$80/month for up to 600 records
$100/month for up to 1,000 records
$150/month for up to 2,000 records
$210/month for up to 3,000 records
$300/month for up to 4,000 records
$400/month for up to 6,000 records
$550/month for up to 10,000 records
All plans include all features, and the first 60 days are free. There are discounts for annual subscriptions.
Additional features: In addition to the volunteer and calendar management, Church Office Online also includes attendance tracking, check-in, mobile app, online giving, and resource management.
Have you tried Church Office Online? Leave a review!
5. FellowshipOne
User-friendliness score: 79
An event showing volunteers and participants on an iPad running FellowshipOne GO Complete
Dallas-based FellowshipOne is one of the larger players in the church management software game, serving around 4,000 churches across the country.
It calls its church management system FellowshipOne GO Complete, and it offers an impressive number of features.
Volunteer management is handled through the event management module, allowing volunteers to sign up for events online and match with specific opportunities. For example, if one of your volunteers is prequalified for child care, they might be matched with a preschool ministry event.
FellowshipOne also adds a few neat features to volunteer management such as automatic background checks and time-tracking for reports.
Price
FellowshipOne GO Complete starts at $179/month for up to 400 records.
You can customize your plan based on number of records and level of customer support using its pricing calculator.
Additional features: In addition to all the standard church management features, FellowshipOne GO Complete also includes accounting and finance, background checks, messaging, online giving, and website management.
Have you tried FellowshipOne? Leave a review!
Related reading
You might also enjoy reading these other articles about volunteer management tools: