❖ Heads up! This article is intended for agency managers. If you're a site manager, click here.
Once you've finished setting up your agency, it's time to start adding volunteer Needs! These are the volunteer opportunities that you post for your agency so volunteers can respond to them. When a volunteer visits the site your agency is registered with, they can search for volunteer Needs by Interest or agency. You want to make sure your volunteer Needs are attention-grabbing and that they encourage volunteer engagement. Here we cover:
How to create a new Need
To get started:
1. Go to My Agency > Needs.
2. Click Add New Need.
- This opens the Create Need page.
3. Fill out all of the required fields and any optional ones you want to include.
4. Click Create Need to finish.
The Create Need page
Several fields on the Create Need page allow you to personalize your volunteer Needs to promote volunteer engagement. You can include as much or as little information about your Need as you'd like! Here are a few things to keep in mind as you go:
Personalize it
You want to grab the volunteer's attention as soon as they see your listed volunteer Needs. This includes coming up with a catchy title and including enough details in your description to tell your volunteers what they can expect when volunteering with your agency. These suggestions are here to help you make the most of your Needs—but don't be afraid to get creative or change things up depending on your organization!
❖ Heads up! Your editing tool may look different from this one.
- Here are some examples to spark some inspiration:
- If you're asking for crafty volunteers to repurpose a loved one's clothes for bereavement purposes, your tone might be more sympathetic:
- If you're trying to hype volunteers up about an exciting 5k event, your tone might be more elated:
- If you're asking for crafty volunteers to repurpose a loved one's clothes for bereavement purposes, your tone might be more sympathetic:
- Want to quickly make your Needs more personalized? Here are some tips:
- Add a catchy title
- Include a personal story in the Need description field
- Add an image in the Need description showing the population affected by this Need—we highly recommend this if you're working with cute animals!
Think like a marketer
A lot of marketing is knowing the audience. So, know your audience as you create your Needs. Ask yourself a few questions:
- Who's the target audience?
- What's the end goal of this Need?
- Who benefits from this Need and how does the volunteer's time and work contribute to this?
- What do volunteers need to know about this volunteer Need?
- What does the agency want volunteers to know about this Need or about the agency?
- When does the Need happen and when do volunteers need to respond to it by?
- How many volunteers are needed?
- Are there any safety concerns or legal considerations?
Answering these questions can help you craft an intriguing and detailed Need that grabs the attention of your intended audience!
Fields on the Create Need page
Now let's look at the different fields on the Create Need page that you'll use when setting up your awesome volunteer Needs:
Fields for personalization
The first two fields are where you can start personalizing your Need:
- Title: Keep your Title simple but fun! Don't be afraid to throw in some puns.
- Description: With the text editor, you can really take advantage of personalizing your Needs in the Description field!
- Here you can share exactly what the volunteer role entails.
- Share your mission statement or what you hope to achieve with their contributions—i.e., what are your agency's goals and how does this volunteer Need meet them?
- Include fun facts about the agency to set a personal tone.
- Break it up with bullet points and headings.
- Add images, links, tables, and more!
✏️ Quick tip: You can click and drag the bottom corner of the Description field to expand your view. Remember, you can always come back to make any edits if you decide you don't like the way something looks after you make it public on the site. 
- Privacy: Want to keep your Need private? Check the button beside Private under Privacy.
- If you mark a Need as Private, you must share a link with the individuals you want to respond to it.
✏️ Quick tip: Do you have court-mandated Needs? Marking them as private is a great way to separate them from your public Needs and keep sensitive information discreet.
- Initiative: Not all sites use Initiatives, so you may not see this option when creating a new Need.
ⓘ So you know: Initiatives are an additional way for site managers to group Needs that fall into specific categories or happen during the same time of year, etc. If you have any questions about a site's initiatives, please contact the site manager for more details. They're the point of contact for everything about their site, as they are the ones managing it from behind the scenes.
Fields for establishing schedules
These fields let you personalize how and when your volunteer Needs occur. This is where you establish the date and times for Needs, how many volunteers you want for the Need, if volunteers can sign up as a team, and more!
- Duration: Select when a Need happens and how often. There are six types to choose from:
| Duration Type | When to Use It |
|---|---|
| Is Ongoing | Do you have a volunteer Need that doesn't have a set expiration date? Select this duration type when you have an ongoing Need where you're always looking for volunteers to perform certain tasks, like:
✏️ Quick tip: Do not choose "Ongoing" as a placeholder duration when creating your need—you can't change the duration to shifts later! |
| Runs Until | Do you have a volunteer Need set to expire on a certain date? Runs Until is great when you know your volunteer Need occurs within a specific time frame and has a set end date. For example:
|
| Happens On | Select this duration type when you have volunteer Needs that occur on a specific date, like:
|
| Multi-Date | If you have a volunteer Need that occurs over several consecutive days, then pick this duration type! For example:
|
| Custom Shifts | Do you have volunteer Needs that include scheduled shift work? If you need volunteers at different times on different days or different times on the same day, then pick this duration type! You can create several custom shifts to fit your Need's schedule!
|
| Recurring Shifts | If you have a volunteer Need with scheduled shifts that repeat daily, weekly, or monthly, then select the Recurring Shifts duration type. For example:
|
- Capacity: This is the number of available volunteer spots for the Need. You can always change this number if you want more or less volunteers to fill a Need.
- If the site manager has waitlists enabled, then volunteers can opt to be added to a waitlist when a Need is full.
- Please contact your site manager to discuss waitlists if they're disabled on the site.
- Click here for more information about waitlists.
- Hours: This is how many hours the Need is estimated to last.
✏️ Quick tip: Do not put zero (0) in this field if you plan on using the Check-In Kiosk! Putting zero will stop your need from showing up in the Kiosk.
- Hours Description: This is the specific hours the Need is scheduled for, e.g., 2 pm - 7 pm. You can also use this to say "hours vary" or "choose your own times!"
- Allow Team Registration?: Want to allow volunteers to respond to a Need as a team? Be sure to check Yes here!
- If you leave this as No, volunteers won't see an option to respond to the Need as a team.
- If you check Teams only, individual volunteers won't be able to respond to the Need unless they do so as a team.
Fields for additional details
The rest of the form includes fields that allow you to establish the location of the Need, any special attributes, age restrictions, and more! 
- Attributes: Don't see a field for a piece of information you want to include? No worries! You can always add more in-depth details to the Description field. For shorter details, you can add them to the Attributes field!
- This is a great place to add additional details like:
- Wear clothes you don't mind getting paint on!
- Bring a jacket.
- We'll provide snacks and water halfway through your shift!
- This is a great place to add additional details like:
- This appears, along with age requirements, if it's family-friendly or not, etc., under the Additional Details section when volunteers click on your Need.
- Interests & Abilities: Here you select the Interests that best align with your volunteer Need! These appear to the volunteers as icons that they can hover over for more information.
- Volunteers can filter Needs by specific Interests. For more information about Interests, please click here.
- Additional Notification Recipient(s): Want to include someone else in the notification list when a volunteer responds to the Need? You can add them here! Be sure to enter each email on a separate line.
- Waiver: Qualifications and waivers are created and managed by site managers. You can upload a waiver as a file for volunteers to review here.
- If you want volunteers to electronically sign waivers before responding to your Needs, please contact your site manager to get started.