❖ Heads up! This article is only intended for Advanced Program Managers.
Once you're assigned a Program, you can add volunteer Opportunities to it! When creating an Opportunity, you can establish when and how often it occurs, how many volunteers are needed, what skills it aligns with, and more! You can also create excitement around your Opportunities by creating fun and engaging descriptions.
Getting Started
1. Go to Volunteerism > Opportunities.
2. Select Add New Opportunity.
3. Complete the Create Opportunity form.
4. Click Create Opportunity and get ready for volunteer responses!
You can also click Create an Opportunity to get started!
Filling Out the Create Opportunity Form
We're so excited to see what kind of Opportunities your Programs offer! As you create Opportunities, you'll see several fields on the Create Opportunity form to help you personalize them.
You can always update an Opportunity if anything changes after you've created one. Here are the different selections you see on the Create Opportunity form and what they do:
Status: There are three status options in the dropdown.
Active: Active means you're ready to post and share your volunteer Opportunity publicly on your site. Volunteers can see your Opportunities and respond to them.
Pending: Pending means you're not quite ready to post and share them just yet. You can create an Opportunity and select Pending if you want to keep it private until you're ready to post it to your site.
Inactive: If an Opportunity has passed or you no longer want it on your site, you can set it to inactive.
When an Opportunity is made inactive, it no longer appears on your site for volunteers and they can't submit hours to it.
You can reactivate an Opportunity by changing the status back to active.
Description: The description area for your Opportunities is important because it's where you can:
Share your Program's or organization's goals, history, purpose, and any additional information you want your volunteers to know about.
Highlight what volunteers might be responsible for if they respond and are accepted for that Opportunity.
Include attachments, links, and videos to showcase what volunteers can expect from that Opportunity!
Privacy: You can set the privacy of your Opportunities to public or private.
Public means anyone visiting your site can respond to or view the Opportunities you share.
Private Opportunities are great for organizations that offer court-mandated community services.
Private Opportunities are also great for assigning to a specific User Group or team.
You'll be able to share a link to the private Opportunity.
Duration: Does your organization have Opportunities scheduled for a future date? Do you have a Program that requires weekly shift work or recurring shifts?
The Duration field is where you establish those requirements for your Opportunities! There are five duration types to choose from in the dropdown:
Duration Types and Descriptions
Duration Type | Description |
Flexible | Use this duration type when you want to indicate a specific expiration date for the Need/Opportunity |
Happens On | Use this duration type when you have a Need/Opportunity scheduled on a specific date
e.g., We need 20 volunteers to stuff back-to-school backpacks on August 1! |
Multi-Date | Use this duration type when you have Needs/Opportunities that run on multiple, consecutive days
e.g., Our Secret Santa Workshop needs some helper elves on December 15, 16, and 17th! |
Custom Shifts | Use this duration type when you want to set up Needs/Opportunities with shifts that occur on the same day or on different days at different times
e.g., Tutors needed for 2.5-hour shifts at Hopeful Heart Elementary School, Tuesday between 3 pm and 6 pm and Thursday between 8 am - 3 pm. |
Recurring Shifts | Use this duration type if you have Needs/Opportunities with shifts that occur at the same time daily, weekly, or monthly
e.g., Happy Paws needs Dog Walkers on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays between 8 am - 12 pm. |
Hours: This is the number of hours your volunteers are expected to contribute to the Opportunity.
Zip Code: Be sure to establish the primary Zip Code where the Opportunity will occur.
If your Opportunity occurs across multiple zip codes, we recommend that you still use the primary zip code here or create additional Opportunities for the other locations.
Skills & Abilities: The skills you assign here help your volunteers search for and match with available Opportunities.
✏️ Quick tip: Remember to click the Create Opportunity button to save your changes!
Additional Opportunity Settings
There are several more ways to customize your Opportunities. You can set the exact number of volunteers needed for an Opportunity, allow teams to register together, assign minimum and maximum ages, and more! These settings let you personalize each Opportunity and include important details for your volunteers, including:
Capacity: This field lets you establish the number of volunteer spots needed.
Hours Description: This is the exact hours an Opportunity takes place (e.g., 8 am - 6 pm).
Allow Team Registration:
Check No if you only want individual responses for the Opportunity.
Check Yes to allow multiple people to sign up as a team.
Check Teams Only if you only want to allow teams to register.
Minimum and Maximum Age: You can establish the minimum and maximum ages.
Family Friendly, Outdoors, and Wheelchair Accessible: For these three additional settings, you can select Yes, No, or Not Applicable (N/A).
These are great ways to help your volunteers prepare for the Opportunity and know what to expect when they arrive.
Volunteers can also filter the Opportunities Page by these settings.
Attributes: Here you can include additional details about the Opportunity, like:
We'll provide snacks halfway through each shift.
Bring an apron!
Wear closed-toe shoes.
Wear your painting clothes!
Here's an example of what the Opportunity looks like to volunteers on the front end of your site and how these Attributes appear:
Virtual Opportunity: You can select Yes here if the Opportunity includes things that can be done from home or other off-site locations.
This is helpful if your Opportunity includes activities like writing, creating graphics, or even data entry, etc.
Address: The address is used to share a map with volunteers when they're searching for Opportunities.
This makes it easier to match volunteers to Opportunities near them.
Tags: Tags are a great way to share your Opportunities with volunteers and make it easier for volunteers to search for your Opportunities by specific criteria or interests.
Additional Notification Recipients: In this field, you can add emails of individuals you want to be notified when an Opportunity has a response.
To use this feature, toggle the button On and type in the email addresses in the field that populates. The emails must be entered on individual lines.
Designate a Site Supervisor: You can designate a site supervisor, which displays to volunteers when they interact with an Opportunity and appears on the FEMA report.
When you toggle this On, fields populate to enter the name and email address of an individual you wish to assign as the site supervisor.
Comments: Comments are hidden from the public and other users. These comments are only visible between you and the Site Manager.
Waiver: Does your Opportunity require waivers? Here you can upload a file for volunteers to agree to as they respond to an Opportunity.
Boosting Volunteer Engagement
With the Description field, you can build excitement around your Opportunities. This is a chance to draw attention to what the Opportunity is and how volunteers will contribute to your mission. You can:
Share the impact, goals, mission, and purpose of that Opportunity and the Program it's connected to.
Explain volunteer roles and responsibilities.
Attach images or add links to videos or other online content that tells your story!
Have fun editing the text with the editor to draw more attention to the Opportunity.
