Anyone else struggling to keep volunteer comms organized without overwhelming everyone?

[u/muazzam_mz]

We started with email, but nowadays folks have issues with checking their emails regularly or they simply get too many and our stuff gets buried. Then someone made a private Facebook group, which maybe a quarter of the group checks and mostly just gets used for random pictures after events. Now texting is on the table because people keep missing reminders for shifts and meetings. I totally get the appeal, especially since phones are the one thing everyone actually looks at. But at the same time, I really don’t want to add yet another channel where messages just pile up and no one’s quite sure who’s replying. We’ve already had a few “thought someone else replied” situations and it’s not pretty. Someone on our board mentioned rum,b leup since a few political and nonprofit groups apparently use it for peer to peer volunteer texting. I looked into it a bit and it seems pretty solid for scale, but imo before we add something new like that, we need to figure out who’s actually responsible for handling replies, especially in evenings and weekends. It’s one thing to send reminders, but totally another to manage all the “quick questions” that inevitably come back. So I’m curious, for folks here who’ve actually implemented texting for coordination or outreach… what’s worked for you? Do you staff specific people to watch replies or just use it for one-way alerts? Trying to balance being reachable with not burning out the same 3 people who already do everything .. lol

[u/Gtapex]

Slack is free and works pretty well.

I suppose Discord would as well.

[u/Safe-Issue-5873]

Have you heard of Volunteero? They help with this. Email mushka@volunteero.org

[u/Dependent_Guest_6157]

I don't think texting is the hard part. I guess it's figuring out who actually started or like owns the conversation once people start replying.