Volunteer Management

Volunteer Management lets you organize volunteer activities from start to finish: create an activity, add its shifts, publish a signup survey, run day-of attendance from the Roster, and track hours and participation in reporting.

Table of Contents

Enabling Volunteer Management

Volunteer Management is off by default. Contact your Success Manager to enable it for your account. Once it's enabled, Volunteer Activities appears in the left navigation menu.

Activities

An activity is the top-level record for a volunteer opportunity, such as a food drive or a recurring shelter shift. Each activity holds its own shifts, signup survey, roster, and reporting.

The Activity List

Select Volunteer Activities in the left navigation to see your activities. The list shows each activity's Title, Location, Start date, End date, and Status. An activity with no end date shows Ongoing in the End date column and has the Ongoing status; an activity with an end date is Scheduled.

  • Search: type in the "Search by activity name..." box to filter the list as you type.
  • Date filter: choose All dates, Upcoming, Past, or Custom range (then pick the from and to dates).
  • Sort: the list starts sorted by start date, newest first. Click the Start date column header to switch to oldest first, and click again to switch back.
  • Delete: click the trash icon on an activity's row and confirm.

Creating an Activity

  1. In the activity list, click New activity.
  2. Enter a Title and, optionally, a Description and Location.
  3. Set the Start date and End date. When you pick a start date, the end date defaults to the following day, and the end-date calendar disables any day before the start date. For an activity with no end date, select This is an ongoing activity (no end date).
  4. Choose the activity's Time zone. Shift times are shown in this time zone.
  5. Click Create activity.

After you create an activity, Levitate opens its detail page. To change an activity later, open it, edit the Details tab, and click Save activity; you stay on the page after saving. Activities linked to an event are edited from the event instead (see Activities Created from an Event).

Activity Tabs

An open activity has these tabs: Details, Shifts, Roster, Reporting, and Surveys. The Shifts, Roster, Reporting, and Surveys tabs appear once the activity has been created.

Activities Created from an Event

An event you build in Surveys can have a volunteer activity linked to it. In the event's editor, open the Volunteers tab and select Enable volunteers for this event. The tab also includes the volunteer tag for the event.

Shifts and the signup survey for an event's volunteers aren't set up in the event editor. They're set up on the linked activity, the same way as for any other activity.

  1. Save the event. Until the event is saved, the Volunteers tab tells you the volunteer activity doesn't exist yet.
  2. Return to the Volunteers tab. A Volunteer activity panel shows the status of the linked activity: ready, still being set up, or unable to load.
  3. When the activity is ready, click Open volunteer activity.

A linked activity's details are managed from the event. On the Volunteers page, its Details tab is read-only and says "This activity is linked to an event. Its details are managed from the event and are read-only here." Click Open event to go to the event and make changes there. Changes made from the event keep the linked activity and its signup survey in place, so volunteers' submitted shift picks are kept. Archiving the linked event also archives the activity.

Note: The Volunteers tab in the event editor appears only on accounts that have Volunteer Management enabled.

Shifts

Shifts are the time slots volunteers sign up for. Open an activity and go to the Shifts tab.

Adding Shifts

  1. Click Add shift.
  2. Choose Single shift or Multiple shifts.
  3. Set the Date. A new shift's date defaults to the activity's start date. If you pick a date before the activity's start date or after its end date, a warning appears.
  4. Set the Start time and End time. For Multiple shifts, also choose a Shift duration: Levitate fills the time window with back-to-back shifts of that length.
  5. Optionally add a Location and Description.
  6. Set how many volunteers the shift needs:
    • Job(s): split the shift into jobs, such as greeter or setup crew, and give each job its own number of spots. Leave a job's spots blank for unlimited.
    • Capacity: if the shift isn't split into jobs, set the total places for the shift. Leave it blank for unlimited.
  7. Click Add shift (or Create shifts for multiple shifts).

Each generated shift is its own record, so you can edit or delete it individually. If some shifts fail to create, the message shows how many were created, and saving again retries only the failed ones.

Managing Jobs

Jobs are shared across your account. To add, rename, or archive jobs, click Manage jobs on the Shifts tab. You can also create a new job while adding a shift by typing its name in the job search.

List and Calendar Views

The Shifts tab has a List / Calendar toggle.

  • List: shifts appear as cards grouped by day. Click the pencil icon on a card to edit the shift, or the trash icon to delete it.
  • Calendar: the activity's shifts appear on a calendar. Click a shift to open it.

Editing a Shift

Opening a shift shows the Edit shift drawer. Along with the shift's fields, it includes a read-only Who's signed up (N) list of the volunteers registered for the shift, with cancelled and no-show signups labelled. When no one has registered, it reads "No one signed up yet." Click Save shift to keep your changes.

Signup Survey

Each activity can have a public signup survey where volunteers pick shifts and register. No Levitate account is needed to sign up.

  1. Open the activity and go to the Surveys tab.
  2. Under Contact information, Name and Email are always collected. Set each of the other fields (Phone, Birthday, Address) to Off, Optional, or Required.
  3. Under Questions, add any optional questions you want volunteers to answer.
  4. The Shifts section previews the shift picker volunteers will see, built from the shifts on the activity.
  5. Click Save signup survey.

Once the survey is saved, the Surveys tab shows the Signup link. Click Copy link to share it.

Times on the Signup Page

Shift times on the public signup page and in the confirmation summary appear in the activity's time zone. When the activity has a time zone set, a note above the shift picker reads "Times shown in <City> Time (GMT±HH:MM)".

Confirmation Emails and Response Changes

After a volunteer submits the signup survey, they receive a confirmation email listing the shifts they booked, with the job, location, and time for each. Times are shown in the activity's time zone.

If a volunteer's signup response is edited after submission, their shifts update to match: shifts removed from the response free up the spot for other volunteers, shifts added are booked against that shift's available capacity, and unchanged shifts stay as they were.

Public Volunteer Page

Your account has one public volunteer page that lists the volunteer activities you choose to publish. Anyone with the link can view it and sign up. No login is needed. The volunteer board must be turned on for your account for the page to be available.

What Visitors See

The page has a header and lists every published, unarchived activity that has open shifts. Each activity shows its title, dates, location, and description. Its shifts are grouped by day, with a pill for each job showing how many places are left.

  • Grid and Calendar views: visitors can switch between a grid of activity cards and a calendar. To open the calendar directly, add ?view=calendar to the end of the page link.
  • Help whenever you can: activities with no dated shifts appear in this section above the calendar.
  • Mobile: on screens narrower than 768px, the grid becomes a single column and the calendar becomes a month list with Previous and Next buttons.
  • Sign up: each card has a Sign up button when the activity's signup link is available. Otherwise the card shows "Signup for this activity isn't available yet".

Visitors see one of two messages instead of the list in these cases:

  • Volunteer Page Not Found: the link is not recognized, or the volunteer board is off for the account.
  • No Volunteer Opportunities: no activities are published.

Publishing an Activity

Nothing is published by default. Editing an activity's other fields does not unpublish it.

  1. Open the activity and go to the Details tab.
  2. Select Show on public volunteer page. The checkbox is disabled, with helper text explaining why, until the activity has a signup survey (see Signup Survey).
  3. Save your changes.

Activities that are shown on the public page display a Public pill in the activity list.

Note: The checkbox is also available for activities linked to an event. Publishing one shows the event's name, location, and times on the public page, and helper text beside the checkbox says so.

Sharing the Page

On the Volunteer Activities page, click Copy public page link in the toolbar to copy the link to your public volunteer page. If none of your activities has a signup survey yet, an error appears instead.

Copy public page link button next to New activity

Public Volunteer Hub page in Grid view with an activity card and Sign up button

Roster

The Roster is the day-of view for an activity. Open an activity and select the Roster tab to see everyone signed up, grouped by volunteer. Each person's group shows their number of entries and total hours (for example, "2 entries · 6.0h"), and each entry has Shift, Status, Check-in, Check-out, and Hours columns.

Statuses are Expected, Checked in, Checked out, No-show, and Cancelled. Narrow the list by day or by shift, and click Clear filters to show everyone again.

From a volunteer's row actions menu you can:

  • Check in (on the day of the shift, for volunteers who aren't already checked in or cancelled) or Check out (on the day of the shift, once the volunteer is checked in)
  • Edit times to adjust their check-in and check-out times
  • Mark no-show or Cancel signup (for volunteers who are still Expected)
  • Delete entry

To adjust a volunteer's hours, type a new value in the Hours column and click Save next to the field.

To add someone who didn't sign up in advance, click Add volunteer. Search for an existing contact, or enter a first name, last name, and email to create one, then choose the shift and job (or No specific shift / No specific job).

To email volunteers, select them in the Roster and use the send email action. The email opens with the selected volunteers as recipients.

Reporting

Each activity's Reporting tab shows summary tiles for that activity: Total hours, Volunteers, Participations, No-show rate, Avg hours per volunteer, and Donated time value. Donated time value uses Independent Sector's national estimate of the value of a volunteer hour; click the question mark icon on the tile for the rate.

Below the tiles, a "Want to view a more detailed report?" callout links to the Volunteers Data Board, which shows hours and volunteers across all your activities. It opens with no activity selected.

FAQs

Q: How do I turn on Volunteer Management?

A: It's off by default. Contact your Success Manager to enable it for your account.

Q: Can I add a volunteer on the day of the activity if they didn't sign up in advance?

A: Yes. On the activity's Roster tab, click Add volunteer and choose the shift.

Q: What's the difference between checking in a volunteer and marking them as a no-show?

A: Checking in records that the volunteer attended. Marking a no-show records that the volunteer was signed up but didn't come. Both are reflected in reporting, including the No-show rate tile.

Q: Can I email only some volunteers after an activity?

A: Yes. Select the volunteers you want in the Roster, then use the send email action.

Q: How do I set up an activity that happens on a regular schedule?

A: Create the activity as ongoing (no end date), then add shifts for each date. Use Multiple shifts to fill a day's time window with back-to-back shifts in one step.

Q: Can I see all my volunteer shifts on one calendar?

A: Each volunteer activity has its own calendar. Open the activity, go to the Shifts tab, and switch from List to Calendar to see that activity's shifts by day, week, or month. There isn't a combined calendar of shifts across all activities. To see who has volunteered and how many hours they've given across all activities, use the Volunteers data board: select Data Boards in the left navigation, then Volunteers. You can also reach it from the link on an activity's Reporting tab. The data board doesn't show a shift schedule.

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