Volunteer forms can be posted to any page on your organization's website, to allow a volunteer to join an Opportunity and track those willing to serve your organization.
Note: Before building a Volunteer Form, ensure your Volunteer Opportunity is created!
To start creating a new form, navigate to the Forms page in Virtuous to get started. Just hover over the left sidebar, then select Marketing. Under Marketing, select Forms.
Here, you'll find all your organization's Giving, Event, Lead Forms, etc. To create a new Volunteer Form, select CREATE FORM and select Volunteer.
Settings
To begin, give your new volunteer form a name. The name will be your only identifier for this form, so it needs to be unique. Instead of just calling it "volunteer form," be as specific as possible, like "Community Meal - August 28th Sign Up."
In addition to a name, you'll have the option to select a default value for the Origin Segment. Each Contact in Virtuous has an Origin Segment, which allows for tracking of acquisition metrics related to any Campaign.
Once your form has a name and you've selected a default Origin Segment, click NEXT in the lower right to move on to the Build screen.
Build
On the build screen, you'll see that a default form has already been configured, with some of the more common fields included. If you like, you can use the default form as-is; simply save and publish your form to use it on your site. If you'd like to make changes, you can click and drag to rearrange the form fields however you like. Click and drag any additional fields from the left side of the screen to add them to your form. Click on the trash can icon on any field to remove it from the form. Some fields, like First Name, Email Address, and Volunteer Opportunity will not have a delete icon as they are required and cannot be removed.
Many of the fields available should be familiar to Virtuous users, as they are used elsewhere in the system. You'll notice Contact and Individual Custom Fields will be available on the left-hand side to build into your form. In addition, any enabled Contact or Individual Custom Collections can be added to your form to track more complex data. You can learn more about using a Custom Collection in an online form here! The "Heading" and "Paragraph" fields are specifically designed to allow a title and a block of descriptive text to be used as part of the form.
Depending on if you want to allow your volunteers to choose any Volunteer Opportunity they wish to sign up for or if your team team prefers to allow only 1 or selected Opportunities, you'll likely want to configure the Volunteer Opportunity field. Select the Edit Icon next to any field to make changes.
Editing the Volunteer Opportunities will present you with the option to "Use all available Volunteer Opportunity values" or to "Select specific Volunteer Opportunity Values".
If more than one Opportunity is selected, the field will display as a drop down for the Volunteer to select one option.
Once you have made changes to your form, select the "Preview" option from the Actions menu in the upper-right area of the screen to see how your form will look once you add it to your web page.
The preview will include any edits, help text, and custom instructions you have added.
From the Actions drop-down, select "Save" to save your changes. In order to use this form on a web page, you must be sure to select "Save & Publish." When you have finished editing your form, be sure to save your work, publish the form, and click NEXT in the lower right to move on to the next step.
Submissions
Once someone successfully fills out your Volunteer Form, you can determine what should happen next.
First, you will see the option to select a Form Confirmation Email to send as soon as a form submission is received. Click here to learn more about Form Confirmation Emails.
Second, you have the option to send a text message as soon as a form submission is received by selecting an SMS template.
You can also either create a thank-you message or redirect the user to another page.
And below these options, you can select a user from your organization to be notified when a submission is made. Once you have made your selections, click on NEXT in the lower right to continue.
Embed
Now that you've created your new form, it's time to put it on your site!
Click on the Copy button to copy the displayed code snippet to your computer's clipboard and then paste it directly into your web page editor. If you are not the web designer for your organization, just click on the "Email to Your Web Developer" button to send an email containing the code snippet directly to the correct person. You'll be prompted to enter an email address, and then a pre-formatted email will be sent directly.
What's Next?
Once your Volunteer Form is live, form submissions will automatically generate a Contact Import, which should be visible on the Gift & Contact Import page each morning. Process these imports to create new records and update existing records as needed. Once imported, you'll be able to see the Volunteer's information added to the Volunteer Opportunity.
And you'll be able to see the Opportunity on the Individual's Volunteering Record, as well.
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