Get Unduplicated Volunteer Count for Service¶

Volgistics can calculate and display unduplicated volunteer counts through several different reports (Service details, Service summary). This help topic explains what an unduplicated volunteer count is and how Volgistics calculates it.

An unduplicated volunteer count is the number of individual volunteers who performed volunteer service during a specified time period, regardless of how much service they performed or how frequently they served. In other words, the number of different people who served. If the same person volunteered ten times, they are still counted just once in an unduplicated volunteer count.

When you create Volgistics reports that sub-total unduplicated volunteer counts, you may find that the grand totals are not the sum of all of the sub-totals. This is normal, and the totals are all correct. It happens when the same volunteers serve in more than one area.

Example¶

A small volunteer program has two assignments: Tutor and Clerical aid. The following is the list of volunteers who served in each assignment during April 2017, and the dates they served:

Tutor

Clerical Aid

In this example, the unduplicated volunteer count for the Tutor assignment is four, even though there were six different times that volunteers served. Even though Greg Anderson and Nate Wilson each served twice during April, an unduplicated count of "April 2017 Tutor" volunteers will only count them as individuals once. So there were just four individuals who served as Tutors in April 2017.

Now look at the Clerical Aid assignment. The unduplicated volunteer count for "April 2017 Clerical Aid" volunteers is also four even though there were five different dates that volunteers served in that assignment that month, because James Patterson volunteered on two different occassions.

Now lets consider the total count of unduplicated volunteers for both assignments in April 2017. Even though the unduplicated volunteer count for each individual assignment is four, the grand total is not eight, but seven, because Barbara Norman served in both assignments. In other words, the total number of different individuals who performed service in any assignment during April 2017 was seven. They are listed here:

1. Greg Anderson
2. Kisha Hendricks
3. Nate Wilson
4. Barbara Norman
5. Elizabeth O'Connor
6. James Patterson
7. Jason Worth

Note that in this example we assumed that there was only one Greg Anderson, Nate Wilson, James Patterson, and Barbara Norman even though these names appeared more than once on the list. Of course it is possible for two (or more) volunteers with the same name to have service during the same period. When this happens Volgistics correctly counts them as different volunteers, because they would have different volunteer records in the database. However, if your Volgistics database accidentally includes two (or more) different volunteer records for the same volunteer, and each of the duplicate records had volunteer service entries for the period you are reporting, your unduplicated volunteer count would be incorrect by the number of duplicate records. This is one reason it's a good idea for you to avoid duplicate volunteer records.

Volgistics calculates unduplicated volunteer counts for the time periods you specify for your report. For example, one month, one quarter, one year, several years, etc. In other words, it counts the number of different individuals who served any amount of service during the period of the report.

Archived volunteers are included in unduplicated volunteer counts as long as they performed service during the period of the report, however volunteers you have deleted from Volgistics entirely are not.

Unduplicated Volunteer Count and Group Records¶

In Volgistics, Group records are used to track groups of volunteers that you do not wish to track individually or cannot track individually. These records represent multiple individual volunteers, so they will influence the unduplicated volunteer count on your service reports a little differently than individual records.

When posting service for a group record, you will be able to post the same kinds of service information as you do for individuals, but you will also be able to record how many volunteers from the group participated in that service using the Volunteers field. Additionally, you can track how a group of volunteers typically serves using the Participation field on the Core tab of the group record. A group record's Participation can be set up as either The same volunteers each time or Different volunteers each time. Volgistics will count a group's Volunteers values toward the unduplicated volunteer count differently depending on the group's Participation selection.

The same volunteers each time¶

This option should be selected when a volunteer group usually sends the same volunteers to your organization each time they serve. With this option selected, the group's contribution to the unduplicated volunteer count is determined based on the service entry with the highest volunteer participation during the specified time period.

To help clarify this, let's say that a volunteer group served three times in a given month; the first time they sent five volunteers, the next time they sent eight volunteers, and the last time they sent four volunteers. Because this group sends the same volunteers each time, the same five volunteers that served the first time in the month also served the second time as part of the eight volunteers. By the same logic, the four volunteers that served the last time during the month included a portion of the same volunteers that served earlier in the month.

While the group sent a different number of volunteers each time, the group only sent eight different volunteers throughout the month since some of the same volunteers served each time. Therefore, this group will contribute eight volunteers toward the unduplicated volunteer count for this month.

Different volunteers each time¶

This option lets Volgistics know that the volunteer group usually sends different volunteers to serve with your organization each time they volunteer. In this case, Volgistics interprets the number of volunteers entered for each service entry as totally new volunteers that have not served with your organization before. Therefore, this group's contribution to the unduplicated volunteer count is calculated by summing the number of volunteers that served in each service entry during the specified time.

Let's use the same example that we used above. The volunteer group served three times in a given month, sending five volunteers the first time, eight the second time, and four the last time. Since the group sends different volunteers each time, seventeen different volunteers served during the month (5 + 8 + 4 = 17), so the group will contribute seventeen volunteers to the unduplicated volunteer count for this month.

Related Help¶

• Include Count on Service Reports