Impact Jobs
An Impact Job is one where volunteers are making an impact on your community. It’s a job where you want to keep track of “what difference did we make?” You’ll probably want to track this kind of impact information for just some of your jobs and the Volunteer Reporter allows for that.
The Volunteer Reporter can help you keep track of impact jobs in two ways. First, for each impact job, you can write complete statements for Community Need, Service Activity, Input, Accomplishment and Impact. A report, the Impact Statement, prints this information for all of your impact jobs or enables you to send it to your word processor for incorporation into a more complete impact document.
Secondly, you can keep track of two additional “counts” at the same time you enter hours and you can assign the “counts” a different name for each impact job. For example, if volunteers at a particular impact job are counseling families, you can use the Volunteer Reporter to not only keep track of how many hours the volunteers served, but also how many families they counseled and how many counseling sessions they kept. Another report, Impact Job Counts, compiles this information for any period of time which you can then incorporate into your impact statement.
“Impact job?” Checkbox
For any Impact Job, you need to check the “Impact job?” field on the Impact 1 tab in the Jobs/Clients section on the bottom of the Profile of a specific job. (In earlier versions it was on the Imapct 1 tab.) This tells the Volunteer Reporter that this job should be included on any impact job reports. If this is not checked, this job will not be included on the Impact Statement or Impact Job Counts reports even if you entered other impact information for the job.
“What is counted besides hours?” Fields
The next field on the Impact 1 tab is “What is counted besides hours?”. This is an optional field that is used when entering hours. This won’t apply to all of your impact jobs, but will be very handy for some. When entering hours, you have the option of entering an additional “count” at the same time as hours. For example, you may have an impact job where volunteers assist low income families to prepare their tax forms. In this case, it would be useful to know not only how many hours your volunteers served, but also how many families they assisted. For this job you might enter “What is counted besides hours?” as “Families”. Then, whenever adding hours served by volunteers at this job, you can also enter how many families the volunteer assisted right below the hours field. This information is then tallied on the report “Impact Job Counts”.
Impact job setting in Reporter v.6.1 and later:
Impact job setting in Reporter v.6.0 and previous:
Impact Job Counts in Hours
After you have created the additional “counts” you can enter counts for those in the Hours sections after you click Add, find a volunteer, and select the Impact job for that volunteer. Below the Hours field are the Impact fields. These are specific to each job so will not show up on the Hours screen for jobs that are not marked as Impact.
Hours screen in the Hours list (original) mode:
Hours screen in the Hours grid mode:
Impact Descriptions Fields on the Impact tab [on Tabs 1, 2, and 3 in earlier versions]
The rest of the Impact information is taken up with 6 text fields where you can type as much information as needed for each. These are the 6 key elements for any impact job as designed by the Corporation for National and Community Service. This can be a great place to keep this information about your impact jobs and is printed on the report called “Impact Statement”.
The following fields on the Impact 1 and 2 tabs are specialty fields for your “impact” jobs.
Impact Fields Descriptions
Impact job? Tells the Volunteer Reporter that this is an impact job. This must be checked if you want this job included on either of the impact reports.
What is counted besides hours? Indicates another type of numbered count that you want to collect while entering hours. When entering hours you have the option of entering an additional count besides hours and what you enter in this field will appear on the hours screen whenever entering hours for this job. For example, if volunteers at this job are counseling teens, you might enter “Teens” in this field so that you can track how many teens are counseled by each volunteer.
Community Need, Service Activity, Input, Accomplishment, and Impact (Intermediate and End Outcomes) These six text fields are the key elements of any impact statement as designed by the Corporation for National and Community Service. They print on the report called “Impact Statement”.
Impact Job Reports
The report “Impact Statement” can be printed from two different places. It can be printed for a single impact job right from the job screen. It can also be printed for all of your impact jobs from the “Job Reports” menu. The Impact Statement can be used just as it is printed, or you can send it to a file on your hard disk which you can then open in your word processor and incorporate into a longer document.
The report “Impact Job Counts” is found on the “Statistics” report menu. It totals the hours and any additional counts for all of your impact jobs and can be printed as a summary or with a subtotal for each volunteer.
Even if you have checked “Impact Job?” on the Impact 1 tab without entering any additional things to count, that job will show up on the Reports | Statistics | Impact Job Counts report when hours are served for it. So that might be how you would handle a job that doesn’t have measurable services that you nonetheless feel is an impact job.
Run the Hours Detail by Volunteer spreadsheet
to see which volunteer served the most people or other count:
Spreadsheets | Hours Detail by Volunteer | Include volunteer details
It lists the volunteers and counts.
PFI – Performing for Impact
PFI, Performing for Impact, is indicated on the Station Roster by a Y or N in its column. This reflects whether or not the station has Impact jobs. But the jobs are where Impact is recorded, not the station, specifically on the Impact tab in the Jobs section of the Reporter. This must be set on a per job basis.