Volunteer Management

Overview

Volunteers are at the heart of PurposeTech. This guide covers the full volunteer lifecycle — from signup and registration through to day-of coordination, post-event feedback, and re-engagement for next year.

How volunteers sign up

Volunteers register through your branded campaign site. The signup flow is designed to get people signed up in under two minutes with minimal friction:

The booking flow

1. Pick an area — volunteers browse available locations, filtered by region. They can search by location name, area, or suburb
2. Pick a date and time — once they've chosen a location, they see all available shifts in a calendar grid. Available slots show green, full slots show as unavailable, waitlist-enabled slots show orange
3. Enter details — name, email, phone, plus any custom fields you've configured for the campaign
4. Verify email — they receive a one-time login link via email. Clicking it confirms their booking and changes their status to Confirmed

What happens if they don't finish?

If a volunteer selects shifts but doesn't complete registration:

1. Holds expire — their reserved spots are released (typically after 5–10 minutes)
2. Prospect status — if they entered some details before abandoning, they're recorded as a Prospect
3. Abandoned cart email — if enabled, they receive a follow-up email (default: 24 hours later) with a link to complete their signup

Custom registration fields

You can customise the registration form per campaign. Common additional fields:

Custom fields are configured in the campaign's signup form settings. They're stored against each volunteer's campaign record and appear in CSV exports.

Consent & privacy

When a volunteer completes registration, PurposeTech records:

• Consent timestamp — the exact date and time they submitted the form
• Privacy policy version — which version of the privacy policy was in effect at the time
• Consent source — how consent was given (web form, CSV import, etc.)

This consent record is immutable and retained for the life of the account for audit purposes. If a volunteer contacts you to withdraw consent or request data deletion, see the FAQ for the process.

Managing volunteers in the admin portal

The volunteers table

The admin portal shows all volunteers across the campaign in a searchable, sortable table:

From here you can:

• Search by name, email, or organisation — instant filtering as you type
• Filter by status, shift, area, region, or registration date
• Sort by any column (click column headers)
• Select rows for bulk actions (checkboxes on the left)
• Click a row to open the volunteer's detail panel on the right

The volunteer detail panel

When you click a volunteer's row, a side panel opens with their full profile:

Volunteer statuses

Each shift assignment has a status that tracks where the volunteer is in the lifecycle:

Status progression

• Hold → Prospect: Volunteer selects shifts but hasn't finished registration
• Prospect → Confirmed: Volunteer completes registration and verifies email
• Confirmed → Cancelled: Volunteer or admin cancels
• Waitlisted → Confirmed: Admin manually promotes when a spot opens

Bulk operations & CSV import

PurposeTech supports bulk assign, bulk cancel, bulk email, bulk export, and full CSV import for managing large volunteer groups. See Bulk Operations & Import for the complete guide.

Volunteer self-service

After signing in, volunteers can manage their own bookings without admin intervention:

Self-service reduces admin burden significantly. For a campaign with 5,000 volunteers, handling individual change requests via email would be unmanageable. Self-service means volunteers handle it themselves.

Merging duplicate volunteers

If the same person signs up multiple times — different email addresses, typos, or signing up on different devices — admins can merge their records.

When to merge

• Same person with jane@gmail.com and jane.smith@gmail.com
• Same person who signed up this year and also has a record from last year's import
• Coordinator added a walk-in who was already registered

How to merge

1. Open one of the volunteer's records in the admin portal
2. Click Merge in the side panel
3. Search for the duplicate record by name or email
4. Compare fields side by side — for each field (name, email, phone, etc.), choose which value to keep
5. Confirm the merge

What gets transferred

When you merge two records, everything from the "losing" record transfers to the "winning" record:

Soft-deleted records are retained for audit compliance — they're invisible in normal views but still exist in the database. If a data deletion request is received (e.g., GDPR right to erasure), contact support to process a permanent deletion.

Communication

Automated emails

PurposeTech sends emails at key moments in the volunteer lifecycle:

Each email uses your branding (logo, colours, header, footer) and supports personalisation variables (volunteer name, shift details, campaign info).

See Email & Messaging for detailed template configuration.

Manual communications

Admins can also send ad-hoc emails:

• Resend login link — if a volunteer can't find their original email
• Send registration email — trigger the full registration flow for bulk-imported volunteers
• Schedule missing — catch up volunteers who missed a scheduled email (e.g., registered after the reminder was sent)
• Test emails — preview any email template by sending it to yourself
• Broadcast — send a one-off email to all volunteers or a filtered subset

Per-shift-type communications

Different shift types can include email notes — role-specific instructions automatically included in confirmation and reminder emails. For example:

• "Setup" shifts include: "Please arrive 15 minutes early. Enter via the loading dock."
• "Morning Collection" shifts include: "Wear the blue branded t-shirt. Collect your bucket from the site coordinator."
• "Pack Down" shifts include: "Please stay until all equipment is loaded. Parking is available at the rear entrance."

Delegation

Area coordinators and site coordinators manage volunteers in their assigned areas without needing full admin access:

This distributed management model scales to campaigns with hundreds of locations — each coordinator handles their own patch, and the admin oversees the whole operation.

See User Management for how to set up and manage coordinators.

Feedback and safety

PurposeTech includes a feedback and safety system for recording volunteer behaviour, managing the blocklist, and volunteer safety guidelines. See Feedback & Safety for the complete guide.

Reporting

See Reports & Data Exports for detailed reporting on volunteer counts, fulfilment, registration timelines, referral stats, email engagement, and CSV exports.

Common questions

A volunteer signed up with the wrong email. Can I fix it?

Yes. Open their record in the admin portal, edit the email field, and save. If they've already signed up twice with different emails, use the Merge Tool to combine both records into one.

A volunteer wants to change their shift. Do they need to contact us?

No — volunteers can manage their own bookings. After signing in on the campaign site, they can cancel a shift and book a different one. Coordinators can also move volunteers from the roster using the Move Tool.

What happens when a shift is full?

If you've enabled waitlisting, volunteers can join a waitlist. They'll see a "Join waitlist" option instead of "Book". Admins and coordinators can promote waitlisted volunteers when spots open — this is a manual step, not automatic, so you control who gets the spot.

What's the difference between "Unverified" and "Prospect"?

• Prospect — they selected shifts but never completed the registration form. Their shift holds will expire automatically.
• Unverified — they completed the form but never clicked the email verification link. Their shifts are assigned but they haven't confirmed they'll actually show up.

Both are worth watching. Prospects usually sort themselves out (the holds expire). Unverified volunteers are riskier — they've committed to a slot but may have entered a wrong email.

Can I import volunteers from a spreadsheet?

Yes. Use CSV import to bulk-upload volunteers. Download the template, fill it in, and upload. The system validates every row, flags duplicates, and lets you pick which records to import. Required field: email. Optional: name, phone, address, organisation.

How do I handle walk-ins on event day?

From the roster, click the Add Volunteer button on any empty slot. Enter the volunteer's name and phone number (email is optional for coordinators on the day). They're immediately assigned to that shift.

Can I block someone from volunteering again?

Yes. Open the volunteer's record, go to the feedback section, and add them to the blocklist. Blocklisted users are automatically prevented from signing up for any future campaigns across your organisation.

How does the referral system work?

After signing up, volunteers get a referral link they can share with friends. When someone signs up through a referral link, the system tracks who referred whom. You can see referral chains in the volunteer's profile — useful for measuring word-of-mouth recruitment.

Can volunteers sign up for multiple shifts?

Yes. During registration, volunteers can select multiple shifts across different times and days. They can also come back later, sign in, and add more shifts to their booking.

What happens if a volunteer cancels?

Their shift slot is freed and becomes available for other volunteers (or walk-ins on event day). If there's a waitlisted volunteer for that shift, you can manually promote them. Cancellation doesn't affect the volunteer's account — they can sign up for other shifts or future campaigns.

Can volunteers see who else is signed up?

No. Volunteers only see their own bookings. They cannot see other volunteers' names, contact details, or which shifts others have booked. Only coordinators and admins see that information.

How do I re-engage last year's volunteers?

Export the volunteer list from last year's campaign as CSV, then import it into this year's campaign. The system matches by email — existing volunteers are flagged so you don't create duplicates. You can then send them an email invitation to sign up for this year's programme.

Can a volunteer register a group of people?

Yes, through the referral system — a volunteer can share their referral link with friends, and each person signs up individually through that link. For corporate groups where one person registers everyone, use the Adopt-a-Site feature or CSV import to pre-register the group.

Next steps

• Shift Booking — how shifts are created, configured, and assigned
• Roster Management — day-of coordination at each location
• Bulk Operations & Import — bulk actions and CSV import
• Feedback & Safety — recording feedback and managing the blocklist
• Reports & Data Exports — reporting views and data exports
• Email & Messaging — email template configuration
• User Management — admin roles and coordinator assignments
• Glossary — definitions of all volunteer status terms