I'm thinking about trying to consolidate my archived records since I have quite a few volunteers that served briefly for under 50 hours.  I was considering creating a "group" record and just putting in a lump sum of hours for all the volunteers together, but realized that the group doesn't keep a list of names, so I would lose the historical record of who has volunteered in the past even though I'd keep their service hours in my totals. 

Any thoughts on another way of doing it?  I'm just trying to keep costs down without having to increase my service level to accommodate more archived records.

I archive anyone who hasn't served within six months and was thinking to delete their record after two years in the archive.  What's your policy?

Rob and Jamine,

Guess Children's will be the ones to keep Volgistics as a viable company.  We have made the decision that we will archive records and maintain them on file.   Currently have just under 2K records active (provided service in the last 18 months--this number will change 12/31/12 as I archive twice a year) and 2.5K archived.  These numbers have accumulated since we have been on Volgistics. 

All records before that are on disk or microfiche.  If we had to we could go back to the beginning of volunteers at Children's and provide every name and hours total.  I hope we are never asked to do that, it would take quite a while.

We are often asked to provide information when someone passes away about their volunteering at Children's that is used in the funeral service.  We also have some professional programs that require volunteer service for entry that don't say what years it must be done, so we have college graduates wanting hours reports from when they were 14 and in the teen program.

My question to you is how are you verifying service for someone who is past the time you keep them in archives?

Our foundation folks have asked for information a time or two when talking about estate planning with a former volunteer/future donor.