❖ Heads up! This article is intended for Site Managers. Only Site Managers can make changes to a site's settings.    

You've been busy setting up your site so Agencies can start registering and posting their Needs. Now, let's look at how you can organize the landing page of your site for volunteers, establish the value of a volunteer hour, set some requirements and allowances for volunteers, etc. 

In this article, we cover the Volunteers section of your main site settings. To access this area:

1. Go to Settings > Main Settings. 

2. Scroll down to Volunteers and begin editing your site's settings to how you want! 

3. Don't forget to click the Update Settings button to save your changes. 

Here we cover: 

• The volunteer view
• Volunteer hours
  • Establish the value of a volunteer hour
  • Require emails for team registrations
  • Require contact emails for individual hours
  • Allow individual or "plus-one" hours
    • Individual hours
    • Plus-one hours
• Other settings
  • Show pop-up after action
  • Agency contact information

The volunteer view

The first two items you'll see in this section are User Landing Page and Default User View:

• User Landing Page: You can choose which page you want volunteers to land on when they log into your site by selecting from the dropdown: 

• Default User View: You can decide how a volunteer sees your organization's Agencies or Needs. The four options in the dropdown include: 

• Grid: With this view, your items appear in rectangular boxes called "cards". 
  • Grid is the default setting for the Default User View. 

• List: This view displays those items in a simple list. 
  • Volunteers can switch to list view as needed.

• Calendar: This option displays those items on a monthly calendar. 
  • This view is useful for finding shifts to Needs on specific dates.

• Map: With the map view, you can choose to have your items appear as pins on a map that volunteers can click on to learn more about. 

Volunteer hours

Volunteer hours play an important role in your organization's reporting and for your Agencies too. As the site manager, you can:

• Establish the value of a volunteer hour
• Require emails for team registrations
• Require contact emails for individual hours
• Allow individual or "plus-one" hours
  • Individual hours
  • Plus-one hours

Establish the value of a volunteer hour

The value of a volunteer hour is automatically set to the state rate that your organization is in. We pull that rate from www.independentsector.org but you can change this rate to one that better suits your community. 

✏️ Quick tip:  Want to remove the Value of a Volunteer Hour from the volunteer view? Enter -1 to remove this section from the volunteer's dashboard.  

Require emails for team registrations

If you want volunteers to provide a name and email address when they register for a Need as a team, toggle this button On. 

ⓘ So you know: 

• When this button is toggled Off volunteers only have to provide the number of people on the team. 
• Toggling this button Off makes it easier for team leaders to sign up as a team—since they don't require Need titles and email addresses for each member. 
  • When this button is Off, they can select reserved slots for team members who join later. 
  • If you require emails for registration, then this option won't be available for anyone who creates a team. 

Require contact emails for individual hours

If you decide to allow individual hours, then you can also require that volunteers provide a name and email address for someone who can verify those hours.

• To require contact emails, toggle this button On. 
• Toggle this button off if you don't want to require contact emails for individual hour

Allow individual or "plus-one" hours

Individual hours

You can allow volunteers to submit individual hours. 

• Individual hours are hours performed by a volunteer on their own—not in response to a posted Need. 
  • These hours aren't required to be verified but, as the Site Manager, you require that volunteers share the name and email address of someone who can verify their hours. 
    • The person listed as a contact for individual hours is not emailed, it is just for your information! 
      
  • When submitting individual hours, volunteers can specify where they volunteered, the date, and the hours they volunteered. 

• Toggle this On to allow volunteers to submit individual hours. 
• Toggle this Off if you only want volunteers to submit hours to Agency posted Needs.  
  • Volunteers must first respond to a posted Need to submit hours if this option is Off. 

Plus-one hours

This option allows volunteers to submit hours for friends or family who volunteered with them but don't have an account on your site. 

• You and your Agency Managers can also submit plus-one hours on behalf of volunteers. 

• Toggle this On to allow "plus-one" hours to be submitted to your site. 
  • If this is toggled On then the hour submission form will include an option to add "plus one" hours. 
• Toggle this Off if you don't want this option to appear on the hour submission form.

Other settings

There are a couple more settings we want to cover to ensure you're getting the most out of your main site settings, including: 

• Show pop-up after action
• Agency contact information

Show pop-up after action

This feature makes it so that a pop-up appears when a volunteer responds to a Need.

• The pop-up thanks them for responding and offers the option to share the item they've responded to on social media. 
• If the volunteer responds to a shift Need, then the pop-up includes the option to create a calendar event. 
• If you use donations, the pop-up also includes a Donate button. 

• Toggle this On to have the pop-ups appear when a volunteer interacts with any of those items. 
• Toggle this Off so that the pop-up doesn't appear. 

Agency contact information

As the site manager, you can decide if an Agency's contact information—i.e., contact name, email, phone, and fax—is shared on the Agency profile. 

• Select Show publicly on agency profile to include it on their profile. 
• Select Hide to not include it on their profile.
  • Since your site probably has several agencies posting Needs, it would be best to show their contact information on their profile. 
    • That way volunteers reach out to their agencies first with questions and the Agency Managers can channel their questions up to you or another Site Manager.