Its all laughs on our team especially when we start filling the CTOs inbox with our own personal requests to improve the platform.

You know that moment when you find yourself on the other side of your own product and suddenly have a lot of opinions? That’s where Chelsea and I found ourselves recently. After years of helping others coordinate volunteers through Helper Helper, we both stepped into the role of volunteer coordinators in our local communities—Chelsea for her PTA and me for a nonprofit. Turns out, using Helper Helper is an absolute joy… but it also gave us some first-hand insight into the little things we could tweak to make it even better. Naturally, we took our findings straight to our CTO, Matt.

Now, we pride ourselves on Helper Helper being the perfect mix of simple and dynamic, and our customer service? Top-notch. But let’s be real—when you’re the one sending feature requests, you realize just how much effort goes into balancing flexibility with ease of use. Here are a few things we discovered along the way:

Chelsea’s PTA Adventures: The Great Auto-Validation Debacle

Chelsea’s been using Helper Helper to organize parent volunteers, and she loves that the platform can automatically validate hours. Less manual work? Sign her up! But then, a tiny hiccup—one of the reminder emails still asked volunteers to “record their time.” Wait… what? We checked the settings, and yep, auto-validation was on. But we’d somehow missed updating that particular message. Whoops. A small oversight, but one that suddenly became very important when Chelsea’s sister who is also a PTA volunteer had brought it to Chelsea’s attention. Straight to Matt’s inbox it went

Want to know more about how Helper Helper simplifies PTA volunteer coordination? Check out some key features here.

My Nonprofit Scheduling Struggles: The Quest for Custom Categories

In my new role as a volunteer – volunteer coordinator, I was setting up a schedule for Sunday mornings, and some of the roles were paid positions while others were volunteer-based. Helper Helper lets you assign different categories to different events, but I wanted different categories within the same event. I was suddenly that user—the one requesting a hyper-specific feature that 99% of people probably don’t need… but wow, would it have been convenient. Low priority? Sure. Still sent it to Matt? Absolutely.

For more on how to streamline scheduling, visit our resource hub to learn about setting custom categories.

Moving Time Slots: A Battle of Patience

I had a ton of time slots in my event, and they all started at the same time. Naturally, I wanted to reorder them in a way that made sense. I quickly realized there were no little “up and down” arrows like we have in our surveys to rearrange them. The solution? Renaming and rewriting descriptions to force them into the order I wanted. Did I survive? Yes. Did I immediately suggest adding reorder buttons? Also yes.

The Hidden Gem: Events Within Events

Helper Helper has this amazing feature that lets you build events within events. It’s super powerful… if you know it exists. The problem? It’s a little too hidden. I found myself thinking, If I didn’t already know about this, would I ever find it? Probably not. So, naturally, I took my case to Matt and made this 4 step graphic below for you.

Want to make the most of Helper Helper’s event management tools? Here’s a step-by-step breakdown on doing an event within an event.

The Inevitable Outcome: Get in Line, Krista

Every great volunteer management software company has a process for prioritizing feature requests, and Helper Helper is no different. We maintain a long list of enhancements in Asana, where we weigh what’s most impactful for our clients. So what did Matt do with my brilliant, world-changing ideas? He added them to the queue… just like everyone else’s. “Get in line, Krista.” Fair enough.

The Takeaway: We’re Always Listening

At Helper Helper, we’re obsessed with making volunteer management seamless. Stepping into our users’ shoes reinforced just how much every little detail matters. Some of these tweaks might be minor, but together, they help make Helper Helper the best volunteer management software out there.

If you’re looking for a volunteer tracking system that balances simplicity with flexibility, we’ve got you covered. From coordinating community service events to organizing PTA volunteers, we know what it takes to streamline the process because we use it ourselves.

So, to all our clients who’ve ever submitted a request—know that we get it. We hear you. And sometimes, we’re right there with you, wishing Matt would just prioritize our idea already.

Want to send us your own feature requests? We’re always listening at support@helperhelper.com.