Reporting of Board Volunteer hours in new CRM
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	Lokal_Profil
	Feb 19 2025, 8:54 AM

Description

For our reporting we need to estimate the number of volunteer hours per Calendar Year. For us to keep track of this in the CRM we report on any Volunteer Activities with a Volunteer Date indicating the last date of the effort. This date is used both for determining the year of the activity and for GDPR purposes.

Most Volunteer Activities are either time limited (making Volunteer Date obvious) or ongoing (a separate Volunteer Activity is set up per year with Volunteer Date set to the December 31 of that year).

General assembly (Årsmöte) elected positions are however a bit different in that they are time limited (1 year) but don't fit into the calendar year (effectively running from May to May the following year). For the Nomination Committee (Valberedning) and Internal Auditors (Internrevision) the effort can all be assumed to happen at the end of the period meaning for the 2024-25 mandate all of the hours are in 2025, so we can use a Volunteer Date which corresponds to the end of the actual mandate (e.g. 2025-04-26).

Board Members however have a continuos effort throughout the mandate period. Historically we have reported on the whole of the effort at the end of mandate period in (so all the hours of the 2022-2023 board were reported in 2023). This worked since we looked at the board as a whole and assumed that the effort did not change significantly from year to another. In the new CRM the hours are split per board member and, as the composition of the board can not be assumed to not stay unchanged throughout a calendar year, this brings with it the need for either change or for accepting some of the shortcomings of the model.

We therefore have a choice in how we report board hours:

Count hours towards the last year only (almost same as before), i.e. all hours of the 2023-2024 board are given the Volunteer Date 2024-04-26 and therefore count towards 2024 only.
- Downsides:
  - Not technically true. (Operating Year and Calendar Year are not the same)
  - If a board member leaves during the mandate period this will require a lot of manual handling to ensure this board member has a correct end date (for GDPR) while their hours are not double reported.
- Upsides:
  - Close to previous reporting i.e. no clash with historical data
  - Handled in the same way as other General assembly (Årsmöte) elected positions.
  - Hours can be reported/estimated per Operating Year making it easy to include any changes in effort.
Split into two activities, i.e. each Board Member 2023-2024 activity would be split into a 2023 and a 2024 part.
- Downsides:
  - Extra effort needed (twice the edits in the CRM).
  - Updates to the already entered 2023-2024 board data would need to be made to separate out the 2024 hours.
  - Estimated/reported hours would need to make a clear distinction between mandate periods.
- Upsides:
  - Date is accurate.
  - All reporting is on a Calendar Year basis, potentially streamlining the reporting.
  - Easy to set accurate GDPR date per board member.
By calendar Year only, i.e. each individual would have a "board 2024" activity which covers both the latter part of the 2023-2024 period and the first part of the 2024-2025 period.
- Downsides:
  - Updates to the already entered 2023-2024 board data would need to be made to separate out the 2024 hours.
  - Estimated/reported hours would need to make a clear distinction between mandate periods and would need additional logic to keep track of changes in board composition (members and responsabilities)
- Upsides:
  - Similar to how other ongoing volunteer commitments are handled.
  - No need to duplicate the number of entries (compared to option 2).
  - Easy to set accurate GDPR date per board member.

Related Objects
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Status	Assigned	Task
Open	None	T368885 ☂ Implementation of new CRM
Open	elenorweijmar	T386613 Set up volunteer management in the new CRM
Open	elenorweijmar	T386786 Reporting of Board Volunteer hours in new CRM

Event Timeline

Lokal_Profil created this task.Feb 19 2025, 8:54 AM

Lokal_Profil updated the task description. (Show Details)Feb 19 2025, 9:02 AM

@Jenny_Brandt_WMSE @Jopparn
The decision on this needs to happen in the near future in order for the 2024 data to be finalised and reports to be set up.

While summarising it I came to a clear preference for alternative 1. It makes it fairly easy to set up the Volunteer Activities after elections are held and to follow up on reporting at the end of the engagement. That the date reported per year isn't technically true is less of an issue and can be solved by simply being transparent about how we are reporting (it will not result in any over-/under reporting across years).
While this would move this part of the volunteer reporting away from the end-of-year reporting I think the risk can be mitigated by adding this (reporting on leaving board and adding the new board) as todos to the AGM checklist.

My second preference would be alternative 3.

Lokal_Profil moved this task from 📥 Backlog to 📆 This week on the User-Lokal_Profil board.Feb 19 2025, 9:23 AM

Lokal_Profil moved this task from Backlog to In progress on the WMSE-Development-of-the-association-2024 board.

In T386786#10562618, @Lokal_Profil wrote:

@Jenny_Brandt_WMSE @Jopparn
The decision on this needs to happen in the near future in order for the 2024 data to be finalised and reports to be set up.

While summarising it I came to a clear preference for alternative 1. It makes it fairly easy to set up the Volunteer Activities after elections are held and to follow up on reporting at the end of the engagement. That the date reported per year isn't technically true is less of an issue and can be solved by simply being transparent about how we are reporting (it will not result in any over-/under reporting across years).
While this would move this part of the volunteer reporting away from the end-of-year reporting I think the risk can be mitigated by adding this (reporting on leaving board and adding the new board) as todos to the AGM checklist.

My second preference would be alternative 3.

What I am reacting to regarding alternative 1 is the second downside connected to a board member leaving. It has happened a couple of times already that board members for different reasons have to leave the board, and I would say that it is likely to happen again now and then. You stated that it will take "a lot of manual handling" and I am not sure what that means. If "a lot" really is a lot, then alternative 3 might be better.

Sebastian_Berlin-WMSE edited projects, added WMSE-Development-of-the-association-2025; removed WMSE-Development-of-the-association-2024.Feb 24 2025, 10:37 AM

Sebastian_Berlin-WMSE moved this task from Backlog to In progress on the WMSE-Development-of-the-association-2025 board.

In T386786#10570379, @Jopparn wrote:

In T386786#10562618, @Lokal_Profil wrote:

@Jenny_Brandt_WMSE @Jopparn
The decision on this needs to happen in the near future in order for the 2024 data to be finalised and reports to be set up.

While summarising it I came to a clear preference for alternative 1. It makes it fairly easy to set up the Volunteer Activities after elections are held and to follow up on reporting at the end of the engagement. That the date reported per year isn't technically true is less of an issue and can be solved by simply being transparent about how we are reporting (it will not result in any over-/under reporting across years).
While this would move this part of the volunteer reporting away from the end-of-year reporting I think the risk can be mitigated by adding this (reporting on leaving board and adding the new board) as todos to the AGM checklist.

My second preference would be alternative 3.

What I am reacting to regarding alternative 1 is the second downside connected to a board member leaving. It has happened a couple of times already that board members for different reasons have to leave the board, and I would say that it is likely to happen again now and then. You stated that it will take "a lot of manual handling" and I am not sure what that means. If "a lot" really is a lot, then alternative 3 might be better.

So the problem is that:

the Volunteer Date is used to set Last Volunteer Activity which in turn is used to start the clock on when to delete the personal data in the system.
the Volunteer Date (in this solution) is also used to determine which year the hour count towards.
want to count the hours for this board member in 2024 (not 2023), to avoid double counting.

In the following cases this will NOT be a problem:

the board member leaves in 2024 (before the AGM), or
the board member is also an active member in 2024, or
the board member is an active donor in 2024, or
the board member leaves before participating in any board meetings.

It is a problem if none of the above applies (which has been the case with past leaving board members). The solution then would be to:

Not count the volunteering hours for this board member, or
Set the date to 2023-XX-XX then remember to transfer those hours one year in all future reporting an analysis of hours for either 2023 or 2024, or
Set the date to 2024-XX-XX then have a reminder to manually trigger the deletion of the personal data three years after they left their position.