Volunteer Ledger — Volunteer & Docent Management for Museums and Arts Organisations

The problem

Your volunteers show up. The admin behind them shouldn’t take a whole day.

Gallery coverage, tour assignments, hour totals and the recognition list usually live in four different spreadsheets — and one person’s memory.

Coverage lives in a spreadsheet nobody else can read

Who is on the floor Saturday, who is leading the 10am school tour, who cancelled — it works until the person who built the sheet is out.

Hours arrive from everywhere

A clipboard at the desk, an email, a text after an opening. Every place an hour lands separately becomes cleanup work when someone needs a total.

Grant deadlines want numbers you don’t have yet

In-kind match, hours by programme, volunteer headcount for the annual report — each one means rebuilding the same totals from scratch, usually the week it’s due.

Long-service volunteers go unthanked

A docent quietly passes 500 hours or a tenth year on the floor, and nobody notices until well after the volunteer appreciation evening.

The system

One system for volunteers, hours, areas of service, and shifts.

The same records flow from a volunteer’s profile straight through to a finished report — no rekeying, no rebuilding, no spreadsheet to comb.

1 · Build your roster

Add volunteers by hand or import from CSV — your existing spreadsheet comes with you, previewed row by row before anything is written.

2 · Define your areas of service

Docents, front of house, education tours, the store, openings, studio help, collections — your programmes, named your way, on every hour.

3 · Log time-in / time-out or direct hours

Enter clock in/out or a flat total, with optional mileage — fast enough to do at the front desk, on a phone.

4 · Publish shifts and let people claim them

Post gallery days, tour slots and event calls with the number of volunteers each needs, then see at a glance what is still uncovered.

5 · Filter by date, volunteer, or area

Slice the whole programme by any date range, volunteer, or area of service in seconds.

6 · Keep the history when someone steps back

Make a volunteer inactive without losing a single hour — their record and lifetime totals stay intact.

Where it fits

Your CRM handles patrons and donors. Volunteer Ledger handles the volunteer programme.

Ticketing and fundraising systems are built around who bought, who gave and who attended. The volunteer side — the part that ends up in spreadsheets — belongs here.

Your CRM or ticketing system keeps doing this

Members and patrons
Donations and campaigns
Ticketing and admissions
Membership renewals

Volunteer Ledger handles the rest

Volunteer and docent hours
Areas of service
Shift scheduling and coverage
Requirements and expirations
Recognition and milestones
In-kind value for grant reports

Reports

Reports ready for boards, funders, and grant applications.

Create the figures leadership and your funders keep asking for — without rebuilding the same spreadsheet every quarter.

Every report your programme needs

Pick a report, set a date range, and export or print — no formulas, no copy-paste.

Hours Summary
Volunteer Roster
Individual Volunteer report
Recognition report
Requirement Expiration report
Cost Savings (in-kind value) report
Upcoming birthdays, for cards and calls
CSV export and print / PDF layouts
Saved report presets

Reports that send themselves

On the Complete plan, schedule any report to email itself monthly or quarterly to the people who need it — with smart date ranges, so the numbers land in your director’s inbox before anyone has to ask.

Grant reporting

The in-kind number, without the spreadsheet project.

Donated volunteer time is one of the easiest in-kind contributions to document — and one of the hardest to total by hand. Volunteer Ledger turns it into a report.

Your rate, your programmes

Set one hourly rate for the whole programme, or a different rate for each area of service — a trained docent leading tours is not valued the same as an event greeter, and the report reflects that.

Any period, broken out by area

Run it for a grant period, a fiscal year, or a single exhibition and get the estimated dollar value by area of service — ready to print for the application or export into a budget.

Your own documented estimate

There is no prescribed rate or method for in-kind volunteer time, so the figure is yours — the report just makes it consistent, repeatable, and easy to explain to a funder.

It appears when you need it

The report switches itself on the moment you set an hourly rate, and stays out of the way until then — so nobody runs a dollar figure you never agreed on.

See your own in-kind number — and every board-ready report — during the free trial.

Start your free 45-day trial

Scheduling · Complete plan

Fill the floor without a phone tree.

Publish the shifts you need covered, and let volunteers claim them. You keep the final say — self-signup is a switch, not a requirement.

Shifts with a headcount

A gallery day, a 10am school tour, an opening night — set the area, the time, and how many volunteers it needs, as a one-off or a repeating series.

Volunteers claim their own

Volunteers with a login see the open shifts they’re eligible for and claim one themselves, releasing it if plans change. Full shifts close automatically.

Coverage at a glance

Week, month and list views show what is filled and what is still short, so you find the gap before Saturday morning does.

Reminders that go out on their own

Turn on shift reminder emails and assigned volunteers get a note ahead of time, on the lead you choose — nobody has to remember to send it.

Never miss a volunteer milestone again.

Track lifetime hours, years of service, and recognition milestones automatically, so the appreciation evening doesn’t depend on someone remembering to check a spreadsheet.

Configurable tiers — 50, 100, 250, 500, 1,000 hours and service-year marks, or your own
Recently reached and closest to a milestone, right on the Reports page
A recognition report by year — your appreciation list, ready to print

Requirements & expirations

Know who’s cleared to lead a school tour.

Background checks for volunteers working with minors, signed agreements, docent training, references — define what your programme requires, and Volunteer Ledger watches every expiry date for you.

Set it up once, and the status keeps itself

Record what each volunteer has on file and the rest is derived — you never mark anything “expired” by hand.

Define your own list — start from a pack of common arts volunteer requirements or add your own, each marked required or optional
Status that updates itself — current, expiring soon, expired, or missing required — derived from each expiry date
A review queue and roster badges flag exactly who needs attention, so nothing lapses unnoticed
Secure document storage — keep the signed agreement or certificate on the volunteer’s file, staff-only and access-logged

Recruiting

Take volunteer applications online, and approve them into your roster.

One link to hand your web person or post after an exhibition opening — and no more application emails to retype.

Your form, your questions

The public form carries your logo, your own custom questions, and your real areas of service, so applicants say where they’d like to serve.

An applicant pool, not an inbox

Submissions land in a list you review when you have time, instead of scattered through email and lost by Monday.

Approve straight into a record

Approving an applicant creates the volunteer with their areas already attached — and can email them a login at the same time.

Quiet protection built in

A honeypot field and rate limiting keep bot submissions out, without a captcha in front of a real applicant.

Volunteer self-login · optional

Let volunteers log their own hours — without giving them access to everything.

Turn on a scoped volunteer portal when you’re ready. Volunteers submit their own hours and claim their own shifts, and see nothing else — staff keep full control of records, edits, and reports.

Optional, per organisation

Off by default. Switch it on only when your programme is ready for volunteers to enter their own time.

Scoped to their own record

A volunteer sees only their own entry form and their own recent entries — never other volunteers, reports, or settings.

Hours, mileage, and shifts

Volunteers can log time, add mileage, and pick up open shifts themselves, cutting the data entry that lands on the coordinator.

Staff stay in control

Records, edits, recognition, and reports stay with your staff. Self-login adds entry, not access.

Built to rely on

Built for real volunteer coordination work.

The controls a coordinator needs to trust the system with the whole programme — no IT project required.

Areas of service

Define your own programmes and tag every hour, so totals by area are always one click away.

User roles

Admin, staff, and read-only access so the right people can edit and the rest can simply view.

Import & export

Bring volunteers and hours in from CSV and export everything back out anytime — your data is never locked in.

Audit trail

Every record keeps who created and last changed it, with a timestamp, for clean accountability.

Custom fields & settings

Up to 30 fields you define yourself, plus milestone tiers and areas of service set to match how your programme actually runs.

Email configuration

Send reports and account email from your own address so they look like they came from your organisation.

Simple, flat pricing

Two simple plans. Pick the one that matches your team.

No per-volunteer fees. Essential is built for a single coordinator; Complete adds your whole team, Microsoft single sign-on, shift scheduling, scheduled email reports, and volunteer self-login.

Essential

$19.99/mo

or $199/yr — save ~2 months

Built for a single coordinator.

1 user
Volunteer registry
Hours & mileage tracking
Requirement & expiration tracking
Public application form
All reports + CSV import/export

Starts with a free 45-day trial

Start free trial

Start your free 45-day trial. Use the whole product. No credit card.

Forty-five days is long enough to import your roster, log a real season of hours, and run a full month of reports — then decide with real data. Create your workspace in under a minute; if you let the trial lapse, your account simply goes read-only and your data is never deleted.

Questions coordinators actually ask

We already have a CRM or ticketing system. Do we need this too?

They do different jobs. Your CRM or ticketing platform is built around patrons, members, donors and sales — who bought, who gave, who attended. Volunteer Ledger is built around the volunteer programme: who serves, in which area, for how many hours, what paperwork they have on file, and what the board and your funders need to see. Most arts organisations run the volunteer side in spreadsheets precisely because the CRM does not model it well. Volunteer Ledger replaces those spreadsheets and leaves your CRM alone.

Can we track docents separately from event and front-of-house volunteers?

Yes. You define your own areas of service — docents and gallery guides, front of house, school and education tours, the museum store, openings and events, studio and workshop help, archives and collections, grounds — and every hour is tagged to one. Any report can then be filtered or totalled by area, so you can show docent hours on their own, or the whole programme together, without re-sorting a spreadsheet.

Can volunteers sign up for their own shifts?

Yes, on the Complete plan. You publish shifts on a schedule — a gallery day, a tour slot, an opening night — and set how many volunteers each one needs. Volunteers with a login can claim an open shift themselves and release it if plans change, and the schedule shows you who signed up and what is still uncovered. You can also assign shifts yourself and leave self-signup switched off.

Can we use volunteer hours as in-kind match on a grant application?

That is exactly what the Cost Savings report is for. Set an hourly rate — one rate for the whole programme, or a different rate per area of service — and the report gives you the estimated in-kind dollar value of volunteer time for any date range, broken out by area, ready to print or export. Many arts funders accept donated volunteer time as in-kind match; there is no prescribed rate or method, so the figure is your own documented estimate using the rates you set.

Can we take volunteer applications online?

Yes. Switch on a public application form and you get a link to hand to your web person or post on social media. The form carries your logo, your own custom questions, and your real areas of service, so applicants pick where they want to serve. Submissions land in an applicant pool you review, and approving one creates the volunteer record with their areas already attached — optionally emailing them a login at the same time.

Can I import from a spreadsheet?

Yes. Both volunteers and hour entries import from CSV, and the app provides a CSV template for each so you can map your existing spreadsheet quickly. The import previews every row before it writes anything, so you can see what will happen first. You can be up and running the same day you sign up.

Can I export my data?

Yes, any time. Everything exports back out to CSV, and every report has print-ready output for grant applications, annual reports, and board packets. Your organisation owns its data — if your account ever lapses it becomes read-only, but nothing is deleted and you can still export.

Which plan should I choose?

If one coordinator runs the programme, Essential ($19.99/mo or $199/yr) gives that single user unlimited volunteers and hours, all reports, requirement and expiration tracking, milestone recognition, a public application form, and CSV import/export. If you want your whole team in — multiple staff with admin, staff, and read-only roles, sign-in with Microsoft, shift scheduling with volunteer self-signup, and scheduled email reports that send themselves — pick Complete ($34.99/mo or $349/yr). There are no per-volunteer fees either way.