That’s right a Volunteer Database available FREE. If you do not have a volunteer database or are unsatisfied with your current one then please try out the one that I’ve created called “Volunteer Management System” or VMS for short.
VMS is created for the Volunteer Manager not for the non-profit agency or organization you work for. You as the volunteer manager can therefore manage the needs of an unlimited number of agencies or organizations. Therefore, you can contract yourself out to an unlimited number of agencies because that’s the power of VMS. Having said that it can be used just as effectively within one agency. This database is not like other volunteer databases, when you leave or move on to another agency you take the database with you because it is yours, of course you can leave a copy for the person that follows you but the point is you will never need to learn another Volunteer Management System again.
VMS is not crippled in anyway and is open source. Open source just means that the code is there for anyone to see and tweak. Be forewarned, tweaking is not recommended for non MS Access programmers - by programmers I mean those that can write VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) code. Therefore, being open source, VMS allows would be MS Access programmers an opportunity to see how things work under the hood.
I know what your thinking “if it’s free, it can’t be any good!” I used over 4,000 hours of my own time over the last 6 years to make VMS into a comprehensive volunteer system not just a volunteer database. As a former volunteer manager myself I know what you want and as a programmer was able to build it. If you want a new feature or enhancement, tell me, I’ll make it happen and make it available for everyone. And yes VMS upgrades will be made available at least annually and will always be free of charge.
Why not get started now, to download VMS just use the following link:
http://www.witstoronto.ca/databases/vms/download.html
and click
VMSNewInstallV2000B0061.zip
to download the database.
Note: V2000 is the version and B0061 the current build so when you go to the page the build number may not be B0061 but may be B0062 or higher so don’t let that confuse you.
After downloading and unzipping to a temp folder read the file called:
Readme-Before-Starting-VMS.txt
This file will tell you how to install. If you need a more help to install you may view the movie “How to Install VMS - New Install” on the “How To Movies” page.
Requirements: You will need a supported version of MS Access (MS Access 2000, MS Access 2002, MS Access 2003, or MS Access 2007) installed on your desktop computer in order to run it, if you don’t have some flavour of MS Access then download the VMS with MS Access 2002 Runtime:
VMSNewInstallV2000B0061WithRuntime.zip
Note: V2000 is the version and B0061 the current build so when you go to the page the build number may not be B0061 but may be B0062 or higher so don’t let that confuse you.
I have tons of videos on my website showing you how to install, setup, add volunteers, volunteer positions, etc. There is also context sensitive help which means when you have a form open, i.e., Volunteer Profiles, you can press F1 and read help specific to the form you are on. This help file is loaded with screen shots as visual aids.
Please read the list of VMS features:
http://www.witstoronto.ca/databases/vms/features.html
or view a couple of the shorter videos to get a feel for how easy it is to get started using VMS. Warning: I won’t kid you, the power and features of VMS maybe overwhelming at first but any learning curve will be rewarded with the tremendous amount of time you will save down the road. Just remember I’ll be with you every step of the way, just telephone or email me with your concerns and don’t forget to watch the videos:
http://www.witstoronto.ca/databases/vms/howto.html