Add Volunteer Opportunities to our Website

This is a yes or no question. The simplest choice here is no, as you will receive interest from anyone who applies.

If you choose yes, potential applicants will be requested to provide information about their experience.

Many people apply to do voluntary work in order to GAIN experience so by choosing yes you should be aware be aware that you might filter out someone who could be a really good volunteer, just without experience. We recommend that only choose yes if you really need someone with prior experience.

If you check this box a text field will open below where you will be able to write a customized email that will be sent automatically to anyone who applies.

This can be helpful, especially if you work part time and might not be able to get back to them right away. You can also use it to ask people to provide additional information, explain next steps, or provide links to documents or to online application forms – whatever you feel you need to communicate to any potential new volunteer.

We advise that everyone chooses yes to this section.

If you choose no, you will be presented with the following options to restrict access to the listing:

Age – you can specify a minimum and/or maximum age. This will mean that any volunteer who registers but is below or above these minimum and maximum figures will not be allowed to apply.

Gender – This really should say “sex” rather than gender, but it is currently language that we cannot change. A recruiting organisation can, legally, restrict access to roles based on sex if they can demonstrate that the role in question needs someone of a particular sex to do it. An example of this might be recruiting women volunteers to work with women who have survived domestic violence.

Maximum Sessions – we recommend that this is left blank. This section is really for roles where there are multiple sessions or shifts through a week and a requirement for multiple people to fulfil them or a desire to not have any one volunteer doing too much. This is very unlikely to arise, so it’s best not to enter a number.

Must be Inducted – choose no. Currently induction is not being managed through our systems.

Must be Linked to Provider to Join – again choose no. If you choose yes you will limit the role to only those people who have already applied to one of your roles via this system in the past, and you won’t see any new volunteers.

Restrict to Admin Volunteer Group – Please don’t check this box! I have no idea what it does or why it specifically mentions Lancaster Arts. It’s a bug and I am working to fix it.

Yes or no. If you choose yes you will be asked to add more information. You can specify a rate (e.g. 45p per mile), or explain how expenses are claimed, whatever you feel helpful.

If you choose no then the listing will appear in the search on the publicly accessible website. If you choose yes you will need to share the link directly with people you want to apply. This can be helpful if you know who you would like to apply and only want them to see it.

Yes or no. This speaks for itself.

Accessibility is about whether people with restricted mobility can easily and safely access the location of the role, easily and safely carry out the role – for example are the tools required to do the role adequate and readily available, and whether there are appropriate toilet facilities on site.

Yes or no. In the overwhelming majority of cases the answer will be no.

If it is yes it will obviously be yes and you will know. The system is set up to link events, so if you choose yes here you will be asked to select the event that the role is part of. It’s very unlikely you will ever need this option.

If you choose yes you will be given the chance to upload a document.

You can upload images, PDFs, and Word documents. They might be pertinent to the role, such as handbooks, maps, instructions etc., whatever you feel would be helpful to potential new volunteers.

Most of the time we would expect these documents to be shared directly with volunteers once they have agreed to become a volunteer, not before, but it really is up to you. As far as we are aware there is no maximum file size but the smaller the better.

You have two options here – Individual Sessions or Flexible.

Choose Individual Sessions if your role is for a specific, one off or ad hoc date and time.

You might not expect the same volunteer to do all sessions, as you might want to encourage a spread of people across an event.

You can add a recurring session if you have something that happens at the same time(s) every week or every fortnight, or you can add them individually if they change or are one offs. By choosing this you might only get a volunteer apply for a single session.

Choose Flexible if you’re simply recruiting volunteers to a role that is ongoing, something that might be one or two days a week every week for the foreseeable future or for an extended period of time.

Flexible is usually the best option. By choosing flexible you are really saying that you want to list a role and encourage people to apply to become a regular volunteer, not someone who is only available once.

Flexible defaults to 10 volunteers, meaning that up to 10 people can apply before the system says the role is filled – you can change this to whatever number you prefer.

It also sets the current day as the advertisement start date, but you can choose whichever date you prefer. There is also a separate closing date for sign ups, in case you want to stop advertising on a particular day.