Volunteer portal
Sign-up, waiver, background-check request, welcome email and shift scheduling, on your own domain.
Volunteers are usually managed in someone's inbox: a sign-up form here, a paper waiver there, a text thread for Saturday's shift. The portal puts it in one place at volunteer.yourdomain.org. A new volunteer fills in one form, signs your waiver online, gets a welcome email, and signs up for shifts you've posted. If a role needs a background check, the portal sends the request to the screener you've chosen, and the result goes only to you.
The demo is set up for Salt Marsh Community Kitchen, a fictional organization used for demonstration. Sign up as a volunteer, pick a shift, and see what a coordinator sees.
What's included
- Your own address: volunteer.yourdomain.org, on your domain and in hosting accounts held in your name where the provider allows.
- A sign-up form with the questions you need, such as roles, availability and emergency contact.
- An online waiver in wording you approve, signed and stored with the volunteer's record.
- Background-check request sent to the screener you choose, for the roles that need one. Results go only to your organization.
- Automatic welcome email in your words.
- Shift scheduling: you post shifts, volunteers sign up.
- Portal care every month: updates, fixes, and small changes to forms, shifts and emails.
Shifts and Hours add-on
For $35 a month more, volunteers get a reminder by email or text before each shift, hours are logged automatically from each shift they work, and you can export a report of volunteer hours and their dollar value at the current Independent Sector rate. That report is what a funder wants when a grant asks for volunteer match, and most organizations can't produce it.
What you do
Own the domain and the hosting accounts, approve the waiver wording and the welcome email, choose your background-check screener and hold that account, post the shifts, and tell volunteers the address. Your coordinator keeps the relationship with volunteers; the portal just takes the paperwork off their desk.
What it costs
| Setup | $900 |
|---|---|
| Portal care | $25 a month |
| Shifts and Hours add-on | Add $35 a month |
| Bundle | Counts as one ongoing service. Two ongoing services from the volunteer portal, Grant Watch, the newsletter and Ad Grants: 10% off both ongoing fees. Three or more: 15% off all of them. |
How to start
Reply to any email from me and say which services you want. The volunteer portal is a checkbox on the agreement, and Shifts and Hours is a second checkbox under it. If we haven't talked yet, email me your website address and roughly how many volunteers you have.
Limits, stated plainly
The portal lives on your domain and in your accounts, and volunteer details stay there: I sign in to build and care for it, never copy those details anywhere else, and give up my access when the service ends. Background checks are run by the screener you choose, under your account and at that screener's fees; the results go from the screener to you and never pass through GedDev. The waiver wording is yours to approve, and I can't tell you whether it holds up in your situation; that is a question for your insurer or attorney. Hosting and domain costs, if any, stay in your name.