We’ve all been there: You’ve got a plan in place—say, a pot-luck dinner or a weekend volunteer effort with our kids (and their friends) in the park—but ironing out the details, aka the logistics is the actual worst.
(Cue my love/hate relationship with group texts.)
And while there are tools to handle some of the nitty gritty, most of them are severely outdated and cumbersome, not to mention limited in the scope of what they’re able to do. (For example, using Doodle is okay and all, but figuring out schedule availability is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the aforementioned volunteer effort with 40 of your not-so-close friends.)
That’s where Plan Hero comes in. A friend recently introduced me to this site that offers a set of tools to help anyone who’s busy all the time find a seamless and efficient way to organize a group, but on a platform that’s modern and easy to use.
Because, that’s the thing: Most of us really are juggling a lot. I love that Plan Hero’s mantra is: “You’re a mom with three kids at the drive-through window with a dog in your lap looking at your phone. Can you operate this tool?” Sure, my kids are a bit more grown up now, but been there, done that. And I can 100 percent relate to the idea that a lot of times, the good intentions are there (to volunteer, to organize, to be the Team mom, Class mom, Whatever mom), but they get cancelled out because you’re overwhelmed by too many steps.
What does Plan Hero do?
So, what exactly does Plan Hero provide? For a small monthly fee (the first 30 days are free; membership ranges from $5-12/mo, depending on what features you need), you get access to a series of organizing tools that are designed to help you handle specific types of tasks all in one place. There’s the Club Tool, the Signup Tool, the Team Tool and the Gatherings Tool. Each one helps you organize based on your goal.
Let’s look at the Club and Signup Tools, for example: They’re designed to help school groups like the PTA organize all their events—potlucks, classroom volunteers, fundraising efforts and more. Not only does Plan Hero make it easy for you to corral RSVPs, you can also send out schedules, manage sign-up sheets, collect money if you need to, all in the same place.
If you’ve ever tried to use a bunch of free apps to make all this happen, you KNOW how difficult it is, and how many logins are necessary to get it all handled. Yes, $9 is the cash equivalent of a couple lattes… but if you’re someone who does this kind of organizing a lot, it could be worth forgoing your chai ice blended and giving it a try.
Is it just for school stuff?
Nope. Plan Hero is great for businesses looking to schedule internal office morale boosters. (Think: A sign-up sheet for every employee to experience a 15-minute meditation or massage!) Or, say, you’re organizing shifts for a company-sponsored breast cancer walk. Rather than a dreaded email chain, Plan Hero is a welcome alternative—one that’s pretty, streamlined and gets straight to the point.
70 percent of mothers with school-aged children work, and 75 percent of those moms work full-time. This can make it hard (really hard) to be involved in helping out at school. Consider Plan Hero your chance to still participate, volunteer, and be involved in their children’s lives without having to log hours in the playground or endless committee meetings.
I wasn’t exactly a working mom when my kids were small, but I’m particularly allergic to how political those committee meetings can be, and I always liked to volunteer for things that (a) things where I was DIRECTLY working with the kids (ie. serving school lunches), or (b) I could do from my computer. In other words, I would have killed for this when my kids were smaller!
Check out Plan Hero here.
