❖ Heads up! This article is only intended for Agency Managers. Agency Managers are only available on Center sites.
Hand-Raising Needs are like pre-screeners, allowing you to build interest and awareness around your Needs before assigning or scheduling volunteers. Here are a few questions to consider when deciding if Hand-Raising Needs are right for your organization:
Do you want interested volunteers to complete interviews, onboarding steps, paperwork, or specialized training before participating?
Are you looking to vet volunteers to ensure their skills and experience align with your Agency's objectives and needs?
Would you like to create a waitlist of interested volunteers for future assignments or shifts?
Are you looking to gather a group of volunteers who have expressed interest in assisting during events like disasters?
If you said "yes" to any of the above, hand-raising Needs are a perfect solution to help you manage and organize volunteers efficiently!
Getting Started
When considering if a hand-raising Need is right for you, start by identifying Needs that require a special vetting process. If you have one that requires more than just an eSign waiver or Qualification, you can set it up as a hand-raising Need. Setting up a hand-raising Need requires the following:
A Need that has multiple steps in the vetting process to ensure volunteers are qualified and a good fit.
A public and private Need that you set up for the process.
Volunteers show interest by responding to the public Need. These should indicate to the volunteer that they're only showing interest in the Need and must complete the vetting process to be approved.
The private Need is for after they've been approved.
A Site Manager must also create a User Group with the vetted volunteers and assign the private Needs to it.
We recommend selecting the Is Ongoing duration type when setting up this Need since it gives volunteers the chance to show interest through a specified date.
How it Works
Here are the steps of this process:
1. The volunteer selects a Need that clearly emphasizes they're only showing interest in the listed Need—not signing up just yet, but rather raising their hand for it.
Once they've found a hand-raising Needs, they click Respond. This doesn't ensure they'll be selected and scheduled for that Need. It only means they're interested in volunteering for it.
2. You can then review the responses of interested volunteers and decide to move forward with the application and vetting process from there.
3. Once the volunteers you've selected to screen have completed all of the steps you require for the Need and are approved, they can then be added to a User Group assigned to the private Need.
Please reach out to your Site Manager about creating a User Group for those volunteers. Only Site Managers can create and manage User Groups, including associating Needs with them.
4. When they're in the User Group, they can access the private Need and respond to it.
They won't see the private Need until after they've been added to the User Group with the assigned Need. The private Need has a lock icon in the top right corner of the card, which indicates it's private.
5. Now, you can start scheduling them!