As we near the midpoint of summer, every school system using online volunteer registration is updating and preparing for next school year. This often means wiping the slate clean—deleting last year’s volunteers and requiring them to register again from scratch.
After decades of working in K–12 volunteer management, we still cannot get over how counterproductive this is. Purging your volunteer database means losing valuable information: who supported which schools, what events they participated in, and how they engaged with your school community. In essence, it means starting over—every year.
This also raises a key question about the value of background screening. If a volunteer registers in May for an end-of-year field trip and is deleted in July, was that background check investment well utilized? More importantly, what if that same volunteer would have eagerly supported more activities—if only you’d kept the door open?
At Relatrix, we believe volunteering is more than a one-time activity. It’s a career—a long-term relationship with your school district that should be nurtured and respected.
That’s why we take a different approach with our ezVolunteer platform. Rather than purging data, we retain volunteer profiles until individuals opt out. We work with our district partners to implement periodic reverification and rescreening. On the anniversary of each volunteer’s registration, they receive a notification prompting them to update their information, reaffirm their interests, and confirm their continued engagement. If no action is taken after two reminders, their account is safely inactivated—not deleted.
Taking this approach to volunteer management allows districts to:
✅ Engage volunteers year-round
✅ Track a complete history of volunteer involvement
✅ Maximize background screening investments
✅ Build long-term volunteer relationships that grow with your schools
Volunteers are not disposable—they’re essential. With the right system in place, you can ensure they feel that way too.