What is PurposeTech?

The platform for large-scale volunteer coordination

PurposeTech is a volunteer management platform built for organisations that coordinate hundreds or thousands of volunteers across multiple locations, shifts, and roles. It replaces the spreadsheets, shared drives, and email chains that most charities outgrow — and gives your volunteers a self-service experience they'll actually enjoy.

Founded in 2021 in New Zealand, PurposeTech powers volunteer programmes for charitable organisations across NZ and Australia — from national street appeals with 8,000+ volunteers to multi-day events, community cleanups, and emergency response operations.

Three products, one platform

All three products share the same platform, admin portal, and core features described in this documentation.

How it's structured

PurposeTech uses a multi-tenant architecture designed for organisations that run multiple programmes or brands:

Organisation

Your top-level account. This is your charity or nonprofit. One organisation can manage multiple tenants from a single admin portal.

Tenant

A white-labelled volunteer site for a specific programme or brand. Each tenant gets its own custom domain, logo, colours, and email templates. Your volunteers see your brand — not ours.

Campaign

A specific event, appeal, or programme within a tenant. Each campaign has its own signup page, job listings, shift schedules, and volunteer communications. Think of it as a single "run" of your programme.

Jobs and shifts

Within a campaign, you create jobs (locations, roles, or stations) and shifts (time slots within a job). Volunteers browse available jobs and sign up for shifts that work for them.

This hierarchy means you can run multiple branded programmes, each with their own campaigns — all managed from one place.

Geographic hierarchy

Within a campaign, jobs (sites) are organised into a geographic hierarchy that enables delegated management and regional reporting:

Region

The top level — typically a city or major geographic area.

Sub-region (optional)

An optional grouping within a region. Not a separate entity — it's a label on areas and jobs for finer grouping when needed.

Area

The key coordination unit. Areas belong to a region and contain one or more jobs (sites). This is what coordinators are assigned to. An area coordinator manages everything within their area — all the sites, shifts, and volunteers.

Job (site)

A specific collection site, venue, or station within an area. Each job has its own shifts and volunteer assignments.

Why this hierarchy exists

Delegation at scale. A national street appeal might have 500+ collection sites across 15 regions. No single admin can manage all of that. The hierarchy lets you:

• Break the country into regions for reporting and planning (e.g., "Auckland has 85% coverage, Canterbury needs more volunteers")
• Assign area coordinators who own a manageable patch (e.g., 10–20 sites each) and can make day-of decisions without bottlenecking through a central admin
• Assign site coordinators for individual high-traffic or complex sites that need dedicated attention
• Group sites by sub-region when a region is large enough to need an extra level of organisation

Coordinator roles

PurposeTech uses a role hierarchy so that management responsibility flows down through the geographic structure:

Area Coordinator

Assigned to one or more areas. This is the primary day-of management role. They can:

• View and manage the roster for all sites in their area
• Add, move, and remove volunteers across shifts in their area
• Reserve shifts for corporate groups via Adopt-a-Site
• Send messages to volunteers in their area
• Export rosters as PDF or CSV

They cannot see or manage sites outside their assigned areas, and they don't have access to campaign-wide settings or integrations.

Site Coordinator (Job Coordinator)

Assigned to a specific site/job. A more focused role for when a particular location needs a dedicated person:

• View and manage the roster for their site only
• Add and manage volunteers assigned to their shifts
• Handle on-the-ground logistics at their specific location

When to use which

See User Management for how to assign coordinators to areas and sites.

Core capabilities

Self-service volunteer booking

Branded signup pages where volunteers pick their own location and shift. Mobile-optimised, no account creation required. They're signed up in under two minutes.

Distributed coordination

Delegate management through the geographic hierarchy — area coordinators manage their patch, site coordinators manage their location. Everyone has the tools they need without needing full admin access.

Automated communications

Welcome emails, shift confirmations, reminders, and last-minute updates — all sent automatically. Each campaign can have its own email templates with your branding.

Real-time coverage tracking

See every site, shift, and gap in real time. Know where you're covered and where you need more people — before it's a problem.

Day-of roster management

Live rosters for each site showing every volunteer, their status, and contact details. Coordinators can reassign, add walk-ins, and handle no-shows on the fly — from their phone, not a clipboard.

Salesforce integration

Two-way sync between PurposeTech and Salesforce. Volunteers, jobs, shifts, and assignments stay in sync automatically — no manual data entry, no stale CRM records.

White-label branding

Custom domains, logos, colours, and copy. Every touchpoint — from the signup page to the confirmation email — looks like it came from your organisation.

See it in action

Explore how each product works for different types of volunteering:

PurposeTech Mobilise:

• Street Appeals — national fundraising campaigns with hundreds of collection sites

PurposeTech Event Volunteering:

• Festivals & Events — large-scale events with diverse roles and team registrations
• Community Cleanups — environmental programmes across multiple sites
• Sports Events — marathons, tournaments, and multi-venue events
• Conference Volunteering — multi-day conferences with role-based coordination

PurposeTech Disaster Recovery:

• Disaster Recovery — rapid-response volunteer mobilisation

Next steps

• How It Works — understand the core workflow from campaign setup to day-of management
• Quick Start Guide — get your first campaign running step by step
• Volunteer Management — deep dive into how volunteer flows work