Fire Department’s Volunteer Efforts Made Easy by SignUpGenius

The Maple Grove Fire Department has been serving the city of Maple Grove, MN since 1975. The group consists of a volunteer staff of paid on-call firefighters, most of whom have other full-time jobs. Because of differentiating schedules, the group found it challenging to discuss volunteer opportunities when they arose.

Each year, the fire department is involved with the community's Maple Grove Days event. They organize volunteers to assist with five days of activities including parade participation, staffing first aid support, standby at the fireworks, and covering the emergency operations center. Getting all of the right people in the right places used to be a difficult task.

The group started out using paper sign up sheets at the fire station, then transitioned to word documents stored on the city network. Assistant Fire Chief Tim Bush says, "[The process] required people to use a computer attached to the network. This usually meant making a special trip to the fire station or multiple phone calls between people." After realizing how inconvenient this could be, Bush sought a better way to coordinate. "[I] searched high and low across the internet for an internet accessible way to allow people to sign up for events."