How It Works

The PurposeTech workflow

PurposeTech follows a five-stage workflow that takes you from campaign setup through to post-event reporting. Every organisation — whether running a street appeal, festival, or disaster response — follows the same core flow.

1. Set up your campaign

An admin creates a campaign within your tenant. This is where all the planning happens.

Create the structure

For a simple event (one location, a few shifts), this takes 15 minutes. For a national campaign with hundreds of sites, you'll use bulk creation tools — linked area groups, shift cloning, or Salesforce import — to set it up in hours rather than days.

Configure the experience

Beyond the structure, you'll set up:

• Branding — logo, colours, and copy overrides so the volunteer site matches your brand
• Registration form — standard fields plus any custom questions (t-shirt size, dietary needs, how they heard about you)
• Email templates — welcome, confirmation, reminders, abandoned cart. Each can be customised and scheduled
• Privacy — public (anyone can sign up) or private (password-protected)

Assign coordinators

Set up your delegation structure:

• Area coordinators — assign experienced people to manage groups of sites. They get roster access for their area and can add, move, and remove volunteers
• Site coordinators — for high-traffic or complex individual sites that need a dedicated person
• Site contacts — record contact details for venue owners, property managers, or other non-admin contacts

2. Volunteers sign up

Once your campaign is live, volunteers self-service through your branded campaign site.

The signup flow

1. Browse locations — volunteers search or scroll through available sites, filtered by region and area. They see the site name, description, and available shifts
2. Pick shifts — they select one or more time slots. Available slots show green, full slots show as unavailable, waitlist-enabled slots show orange
3. Hold — selected shifts are temporarily reserved while they complete the form (prevents double-booking)
4. Register — they enter their details: name, email, phone, plus any custom fields
5. Verify — they receive an email with a login link (or OTP code). Clicking it confirms their booking

The entire process takes under two minutes on mobile. No account creation, no password, no app download.

What happens behind the scenes

Group and corporate registrations

Volunteers can also:

• Invite friends via a referral link — the friend sees the same shifts and the referral is tracked
• Register as a group — corporate groups and teams can sign up together
• Be pre-registered by an admin — via CSV import or manual creation in the admin portal

3. Communicate automatically

PurposeTech handles volunteer communications so you don't have to send manual emails.

Automated email lifecycle

Every email uses your branding (logo, colours, header, footer) and includes personalised details (volunteer name, shift times, location info).

Manual communications

Admins can also:

• Resend login links for volunteers who can't find theirs
• Trigger registration emails for bulk-imported volunteers who haven't verified yet
• Schedule missing emails for volunteers who missed a scheduled send (e.g., registered after the reminder was supposed to go out)
• Send ad-hoc broadcasts to all volunteers or a filtered subset

Per-role communications

Different shift types can have different email content. Setup crew gets instructions about arriving early and where to find equipment. Collection volunteers get instructions about their specific site. Each shift type's email notes are automatically included in the relevant confirmation and reminder emails.

4. Manage on the day

Event day is where PurposeTech earns its keep. Coordinators and admins have live tools to manage the operation in real time.

The roster

Every coordinator opens the roster — a live grid showing who's assigned to each shift at their site(s). They see:

• Volunteer names, email, phone, and organisation on each card
• Status badges (Waitlisted, On hold, Unverified, Group, Notes)
• Shift type labels
• Empty slots with "Add Volunteer" buttons

Day-of actions

Who manages what

Mobile-first

The roster is fully responsive. Most coordinators work from their phone on event day. Volunteer cards, menus, and export buttons all work on mobile. The key constraint is connectivity — if reception is poor, export a PDF before you head out.

5. Report and follow up

After the event, PurposeTech provides the data you need for reporting, fundraising applications, and planning next year.

What you can report on

Post-event actions

1. Send thank-you emails — use a campaign-wide broadcast or a scheduled template
2. Record feedback — flag outstanding volunteers with positive feedback, add problem volunteers to the blocklist
3. Sync to Salesforce — if connected, volunteer hours and attendance data syncs automatically to your CRM
4. Export data — CSV exports from any table, PDF rosters, or Salesforce for everything
5. Archive the campaign — it stays in the admin portal for historical reference and year-on-year comparison

Planning for next year

Your data carries forward:

• Volunteers are in the system — export and re-import for next year's campaign, or send them a direct invitation
• Shift patterns are reusable — clone from this year's campaign to save setup time
• Coverage data informs planning — if Canterbury was under-staffed this year, you know where to focus outreach next time
• Coordinator relationships are established — your area coordinators know the platform and can hit the ground running

Next steps

• Quick Start Guide — step-by-step setup instructions
• Campaign Setup — detailed campaign configuration
• Roster Management — day-of coordination in depth
• FAQ — quick answers to common questions