❖ Heads up! This article is only intended for Site Managers.
Do you want to vet volunteers for special Needs/Opportunities? Are you looking for ways to build a network of volunteers who can respond to those special Needs/Opportunities? Or, do you want to manually schedule volunteers for specific shifts instead of allowing them to choose?
If you answered yes to any of the above, consider creating hand-raising Needs/Opportunities!
Hand-raising Needs/Opportunities are meant as a pre-screener for the volunteers responding to them. These are great for building interest around your volunteer opportunities before assigning or scheduling volunteers. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when determining if you should create this type of volunteer opportunity:
Do you want interested volunteers to complete a round of interviews, onboarding steps, paperwork, or special training before they can participate with your organization?
Do you want to vet interested volunteers to ensure their skillsets and backgrounds align with your organization's goals and needs?
Would you like to compile a waitlist of interested volunteers to assign and schedule as necessary or compile a group of volunteers that expressed interest in helping during events of a disaster?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then hand-raising Opportunities are a great way to meet those demands!
If you aren't sure or if you know you don't need a lengthy interview process to vet volunteers before they participate, you can always consider creating qualifications.
ℹ️ So you know: Some sites have language overrides. This means you may see Needs instead of Opportunities, Agencies instead of Programs, or Prerequisites instead of Qualifications.
Getting Started
When considering if a hand-raising Need/Opportunity is right for you, start by identifying any that requires a special vetting process. For example, if you have one that requires more than just an eSign waiver or qualification, you can set it up as a hand-raising Need/Opportunity. This requires:
1. A Need/Opportunity with multiple steps in the vetting process to ensure volunteers are qualified and a good fit.
2. A public and private Need/Opportunity that you set up for the process. Volunteers show interest by responding to the public Need/Opportunity. These should indicate to the volunteer that they're only showing interest and must complete the vetting process to be approved. The private Need/Opportunity is for after they've been approved.
We recommend selecting the Flexible or Is Ongoing duration type when setting up this Need/Opportunity since it gives volunteers the chance to show interest through a specified date. Some sites have the Flexible option while others have the Is Ongoing duration type option.
3. You must create a User Group and assign the private Needs/Opportunities to it. You can then add the approved and vetted volunteers to that User Group where they can access and respond to the private Needs/Opportunities you've created.
How it Works
Here are the steps of this process:
1. The volunteer selects a Need/Opportunity that clearly emphasizes they're only showing interest—not signing up just yet, but rather raising their hand for it.
2. Once they've found one, they click Respond. This doesn't ensure they'll be selected and scheduled for it, just that they're interested in volunteering for it.
You can include qualifications in this step that help you pre-screen the volunteers before they're processed through the more in-depth screening.
Please note that depending on how you've set up your qualifications, you may have to approve it before they can click Respond to show interest in the Opportunity.
3. You can then review the responses of interested volunteers and decide to move forward with the application and vetting process from there.
You can always filter your Responses table by the Need/Opportunity when reviewing them.
Another option is to review responses directly from that Need/Opportunity. Go to Volunteerism > Needs/Opportunities > select the Need/Opportunity title > click View Responses.
You can email those users directly from there too!
4. Once the volunteers you've selected to screen have completed all of the steps you require for the Need/Opportunity and are approved, they can be added to a User Group assigned to the private Need/Opportunity.
Don't want volunteers to schedule themselves for the Need/Opportunity? Then you can keep it private without sharing it with a User Group, and just schedule volunteers yourself.
5. When they're in the User Group, they can then access the private Need/Opportunity and respond to it. They won't see the private Need/Opportunity until after they've been added to the User Group with the assigned Need/Opportunity.
The private Need/Opportunity has a lock icon in the top right corner of the card, which indicates it's private.
6. Now, you can start scheduling them!