❖ Heads up! This article is intended for site managers. If you're a program facilitator looking for more information about how to review your programs, click here!
The first step in making great opportunities to share with your volunteers is creating a program on your site! In this article, we cover:
ⓘ So you know: You'll need at least one program to post a volunteer opportunity!
What is a program?
A Program is an area on your site where you'll create volunteer opportunities specific to your organization. For each program that you create, you can set up its own profile to share important information with your volunteers like:
- The program's purpose
- Contact information
- Location
How you use programs is really up to your organization's goals, mission, and purpose. Ask yourself this:
- Do you offer programs that need to be managed from different locations?
- You could create programs that are location-specific.
- Do you want to organize your opportunities by tasks?
- Maybe you want programs to be task-specific.
Programs can be organized however is best to support your goals and mission. Once you've decided on how you'll use programs, you can start making them just the way you want—and you can start creating and sharing volunteer opportunities on your site!
✏️ Quick tip: Don't think you have a program? We recommend creating a program and naming it the name of your organization!
How do I set up a program?
To set up a program:
1. Navigate to Volunteerism on the righthand side of your site manager panel.
2. Click Programs.
3. Select the Add New Program button.
4. This opens the Create Program page where you can start customizing your program!
Now let's look at the different sections on this page:
Basic Information
In this section, you'll establish important information about your program:
- Status: There are four statuses to choose from in the dropdown.
- Pending: If you start creating a program but don't want it to show publicly on your site, select Pending. You can continue to edit this program and can change its status to Active when you're ready to post it to your site.
- Imported: When you import a program, its status is automatically set to Imported. As the site manager, you'll need to activate any imported programs to change their status.
- Active: If you're ready to post your programs on your site—select Active.
- Inactive: If you're ready to deactivate a program—select Inactive.
- Customize link: You can add your own custom ending to the URL for your program's profile. Your custom link appears below this field when you visit the Edit Program page for a program:
- Hours of operation: If your program has specific hours of operation, be sure to list them here so your volunteers know when is the best time to contact them.
Additional settings:
- Tags: Tags can help you categorize and filter your programs.
- Comments: If you'd like to add any private comments to a program, this is where you can.
- These are not shown publicly and are only shared between you and the other site manager—if your organization has a secondary site manager.
Contact Information
Here's where you can share important contact information for your program, including email, phone number, fax, the name and title of a good point of contact, and any additional users' emails that you want to receive notifications for event RSVPs or opportunity responses. Want to be notified about responses to a program? Be sure to add your email here as well!
- Be sure to add each email address on a separate line, like so:
Links
Do you use social media for volunteer engagement and outreach? Copy the URLs to share those on your program's profile page and start sharing your programs and opportunities with your community!
Location
Make it easier for your volunteers to search for your programs and opportunities by including the program's location here! You can share the exact address and include identifying details (e.g., well-known landmarks or specific details like parking, suite numbers, or multiple locations) in the Additional Location Information field.
Descriptions
Your volunteers will be able to see these details when they interact with the programs on your site. This is where you share your program's mission and purpose.
- Who We Are: Share your program's history, mission, or vision in this field. You can edit the description with the editor, add images, share links or videos, and be as detailed as you like. This is one of the first things the volunteer will see when they click on one of your programs.
- What We Do: Now that you've shared a bit about who you are, use this field to explain what you do. This is a great place to highlight your program's goals and impacts on the community. It's also where you can share how your program achieves those goals and give volunteers an idea of what they'll be contributing to when they volunteer for an opportunity.
✏️ Quick tip: Be sure to always click Submit Program when you're done editing to save your changes!
Photos
Once you save your Program by clicking Submit Program, you can then add photos to an image rotator!
✏️ Quick tip: You must create your Program before you can add photos!
How to add photos
To add photos to the image rotator, click on your Program and scroll to the very bottom. Here you see a button labeled Add New Photos.
- You can add up to 12 photos.
- Photos are displayed in slideshow format at the bottom of the profile page.
- Photos must be image files (jpg/jpeg, png, or gif) in order to load properly.
To add a photo:
1. Click Add New Photo.
2. Browse to the photos you want to add and select them.
3. Either click Open or simply drag and drop the photos into the Add New Photos box.
- This action adds the pictures to your page.
4. Click Okay, or click Refresh Now to view the pictures on your profile editing page.