Has anyone use a website to help register volunteers? I have looked at www.volunteerspot.com and www.signupcom. Has anyone used these sites or any other website?

Do you mean MySignup.com for the second one? Yes, I've used it. It's a little clunky to get started, but works very well. My church uses it for Pumpkin Patch shifts each year (multiple 2 hour shifts all day/evening for a couple weeks - LOTS of coordination). I've used it for concession stand shifts and other things. I like the fact people can sign up and remove themselves and everyone can see exactly what shifts are open. Here's a sample from their site. From what I recall, you can set up one basic signup for for free. But to get more features or get rid of ads or something the cost is $3. I recall the $3 being well worth it.

VolunteerSpot was actually created by somone in my town. We tried to use it this summer with Swim Team but had too many technical difficulties. To be fair 1) it wasn't ME using it, so I don't know the details and 2) start up services like this often need a bit of time to smooth out the bumps. It could be great now. It's been getting lots of local press, so I think it must work well for many.

JHB-

Thank you for the reply. I did mean mysignup.com. I appreciate the feedback.

From the organizer side, MySignUp is pretty clunky looking (and sort of ugly). Don't be discouraged, it's really not that hard to figure out. And of course, once you learn to configure a signup, then it's much easier. From the volunteer side, it's simple - piece of cake. So that makes it effective and worth the less-than-intuitive editor interface.

The first time I ever saw it was when my family was signing up for a slot at the church'es pumpkin patch. I think they need 4 people (2 youth/2 adult) for 2 hour shifts across a couple weeks. It's so much coordination and effort. Can you even imagine managing it manually? The constant changes. The Youth Director - of course - still had to beat the bushes for volunteers, but at least the management of shifts was pretty easy.

This is a great idea--- I've never used either site, but I'm going to check them out-- we have an annual fair that takes about 150 volunteers to make the event run-- this would be a great way to have volunteers sign up.

PTO Today actually has web-based software that could act as a sign-up feature as well. It's called Volunteer Builder and each parent group has their own URL and you can direct volunteers to the link and they sign themselves into the database. You can collect data such as their contact info, their child's info (teacher, grade, etc) and then compile reports based on any information (teacher reports, entire school directory, events they're assigned to, etc.).

A free trial of Volunteer Builder and more information can be found at Software for Your PTO/PTA Group - Organize Your Group´s Volunteers and Finances | PTO Today.

Best of luck!