❖ Heads up! This article is only intended for Site Managers.
Volunteer Needs or Opportunities are the volunteer opportunities you or your Agencies/Programs post for volunteers to sign up and participate in. Your site must have at least one Agency or Program to create and post volunteer opportunities for.
ℹ️ So you know: Some sites have language overrides in place. This means you might see Needs in place of Opportunities, Agencies in place of Programs, or Prerequisites in place of Qualifications.
Getting Started
Before you create a Need/Opportunity, you need at least one Agency/Program. An Agency/Program is an area on your site where you can create and share volunteer opportunities with your community. You can customize these opportunities to fit your Agency/Program needs, for example:
If you have Needs/Opportunities that require shifts, you can create custom or recurring shifts
If you have Needs/Opportunities that will happen on a specific date, then you can establish that in the duration type settings
Maybe you have a Need/Opportunity that requires volunteers to wear steel-toed shoes or tall boots—you can specify those requirements when setting it up
Do you have a Need/Opportunity that's age-restricted? You can set age requirements for it
There are lots of ways to ensure your Needs/Opportunities include all of the necessary information to match your Agency/Program objectives.
Creating a Need or Opportunity
Depending on your site and any language overrides in place, you may see Needs in place of Opportunities here. These are interchangeable terms for the same feature.
1. Create an Agency/Program—once you've done that, move on to the next step.
2. From the left-hand menu of your Site Manager panel, click Needs or Opportunities.
3. On the Manage Needs/Opportunities page, select Add New Need/Opportunity.
4. Fill in the fields on the Create Need/Opportunity form and click Create Need/Opportunity when finished.
Here are the different fields on the form:
Status: You have three status options to choose from in the dropdown.
Active: Active means you're ready to post and share your volunteer Need/Opportunity publicly on your site. Volunteers can see and respond to them when they access your site.
Pending: Pending means you're not quite ready to post and share them just yet. You can create a Need/Opportunity and select Pending if you want to keep it private until you're ready to post it to your site.
Inactive: If a Need/Opportunity has passed or you no longer want to have it on your site, you can set it to inactive.
When a Need/Opportunity is made inactive, it no longer appears on your site for volunteers. Volunteers also can't submit hours to it.
You can reactivate it by changing the status back to active.
Description: The description area for your Needs/Opportunities is important because it's where you can:
Share your Agency/Program or organization's goals, history, impact, mission, purpose, and any additional information you want to share with volunteers
Highlight what jobs or tasks volunteers might participate in
Include attachments, links, or videos
Privacy: You can set the privacy of your Needs/Opportunities to public or private.
Private Needs/Opportunities are great for organizations offering court-mandated community services or for assigning to a specific User Group or team.
Registration close date Some options change depending on the duration type you select, including a registration closed date.
You can decide when the registration closes on a Need/Opportunity so that volunteers can't sign up for it after the close date passes.
The Registration Closed Date is the date when the Need is closed to volunteer responses.
Duration: Does your organization have Needs/Opportunities scheduled for a future date? Do you have an Agency/Program that requires weekly shift work or recurring shifts?
The Duration field is where you establish those requirements!
Duration Types
Duration Type | Description |
Flexible / Is Ongoing
| Select this duration type if you want to indicate a date the Need/Opportunity expires.
e.g., Let's reach our home-build goal by December 31, 2026!
*Is Ongoing is available on Center sites, while Flexible appears on Amplify and Sustain sites |
Happens On | This duration type is great if you have an Opportunity scheduled on a specific date.
e.g., We need 20 volunteers to stuff back-to-school backpacks on August 1, 2026! |
Multi-date | If your Opportunities run on multiple consecutive days, then this is the duration type to use.
e.g., Our Secret Santa Workshop needs some helpers on December 15th - 17th! |
Custom Shifts | Do you want to set up Opportunities with shifts that occur on the same day or on different days at different times? Choose this duration!
e.g., Tutors needed for 2.5-hour shifts at Hopeful Heart Elementary School's Writing Lab on Tuesday, March 5th from 8 am - 3 pm. |
Recurring Shifts | This duration type is great if you have Opportunities with shifts that occur at the same time daily, weekly, or monthly.
e.g., Happy Paws and Claws needs Dog Walkers on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 8 am - 12 pm. |
Hours: This is the number of hours your volunteers are expected to contribute to the Need/Opportunity.
Zip Code: Be sure to establish the primary Zip Code where the Need/Opportunity will occur.
If your Need/Opportunity occurs across multiple zip codes, we recommend that you still use the primary zip code here or create additional Needs/Opportunities for the other locations.
Interests/Skills & Abilities: The skills you assign here help your volunteers search for and match with available Needs/Opportunities.
Remember to click the Create Need/Opportunity button to save your changes!
Capacity: This field lets you establish the number of volunteer spots needed for a Need/Opportunity.
Hours Description: This is the exact hours a Need/Opportunity takes place (e.g., 8 am - 6 pm).
Allow Team Registration:
Check No if you only want individual responses for the Need/Opportunity.
Check Yes if you want multiple people to be signed up in a team for the Need/Opportunity.
Check Teams Only if you only want to allow teams to register.
Minimum and Maximum Age: You can establish the minimum and maximum ages for a Need/Opportunity.
Setting a Minimum and Maximum Age does not prevent volunteers outside those age limits from responding to a Need/Opportunity.
You can set up Prerequisites/Qualifications to help prevent them from signing up for age-restricted Needs/Opportunities.
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 event and know what to expect when they arrive.
Attributes: Here you can include additional details about the Need/Opportunity, like:
We'll provide snacks halfway through each shift.
Bring an apron!
Wear closed-toe shoes.
Wear your painting clothes!
Virtual Need/Opportunity: You can select Yes here if the Need/Opportunity includes things that can be done from home or other off-site locations.
This is helpful if the Need/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 Need/Opportunities.
This makes it easier to match volunteers to Needs/Opportunities near them.
Tags: Tags are a great way to share Needs/Opportunities with volunteers and make it easier for volunteers to search for by specific criteria or causes.
Tags are not visible or searchable by volunteers. You can use these for your information or sorting!
Clusters: Clusters are a tool for grouping Needs/Opportunities by special Causes, outside of the supplied 16 Causes.
Clusters do not show up for volunteers to see, so we typically only recommend using this if you want to sort Needs/Opportunities for your information!
Additional Notification Recipients: In this field, you can add emails of individuals you want to be notified when a Need/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 a Need/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 only visible to other Site Managers.
Clickwrap Waiver: Does your Need/Opportunity require waivers? If you want to add a Clickwrap Waiver for volunteers to agree to when responding to the Need/Opportunity, you can upload it here!
Please note that volunteers must check the box to agree that they've reviewed the waiver and agree to its terms before they can finish responding to the volunteer Need/Opportunity.
Clickwrap Waivers
Clickwrap Waivers aren't the same thing as Prerequisite/Qualification Waivers. A Clickwrap Waiver is simply a waiver that you attach to a volunteer Need/Opportunity. When a volunteer goes to respond to that Need/Opportunity, they're asked to review the Clickwrap Waiver and check a box confirming they agree to the terms outlined within it. To attach a Clickwrap Waiver to a Need/Opportunity:
1. Scroll to the bottom of the Create Need/Opportunity form.
2. Click Choose File and select the file you wish to upload.
3. If you've finished setting up the rest of your Need/Opportunity, go ahead and click Create Need/Opportunity.
If you're adding a Clickwrap Waiver to an existing Need/Opportunity, click Update Need/Opportunity.
Here's the volunteer perspective for interacting with Clickwrap Waivers when responding to a Need/Opportunity:
Editing Needs/Opportunities
If you ever need to update a Need/Opportunity, then navigate to Volunteerism > Needs/Opportunities and click on the Need/Opportunity you need to update in the table:
This takes you to the Edit Need/Opportunity page where you can edit the settings as necessary.
Be sure to click the Update Need/Opportunity button to save your changes.
If volunteers have started responding to the Need/Opportunity, you may want to notify them of these updates by checking the Notify respondents of this update:
