Building your volunteer team is pretty important. That's why we've created a few options to help you connect volunteers to your organization. All of them can be found in the Volunteer section.
It is helpful to remember that volunteers can have one of three statuses in your roster: Connected, Requested By Organization, and Requested By Volunteer.
NOTE: Volunteers are only connected to an organization when both sides agree to it. This can happen through manual approval on by both, or by a volunteer completing a shift for an organization. If either of these scenarios are completed, the connection will be complete.
Option 1: One at a Time
This option is best if you meet someone who says they would like to volunteer with your organization. Once you're content having them on your team (you may have an interview process or form you require), you can use this option to invite them to join. Using the fields at the top of this section, enter a volunteer's first name, last name, and email address, then click Invite.
An introductory email will be sent to the address you provided, explaining that your organization uses Tandempark and encouraging them to complete the process. It includes a link that will verify the connection and update their status on your roster.
Option 2: Upload a CSV
Similar to Option 1, this is useful if you already have volunteers who want to help your organization, but better for when you have lists of them because it handles them all at once from a CSV file.
Not sure what a CSV is? Don't worry. It's just a filetype that is easy to make in Excel or other spreadsheet programs. We provide on screen instructions as you are doing this. It looks like this:
Just like when you send one at a time, an individual email will be sent to each of the addresses you've submitted. (Sidenote: Tom, Ben, and Betty have yet to respond to their invitation. We assume it's just because they're so busy.)
Option 3. The Connection Link
This is a popular and useful option because it can be shared on social media and included in emails and webpages. It's a unique code that can be entered (or clicked on) by a volunteer, which sends the organization the request. They appear in your Volunteer section for your approval.
To approve volunteers, find anyone with "Requested by Volunteer" (you can filter for this at the top of the list) and, assuming they meet the criteria your organization has for volunteering, select them and click Approve Request in the Volunteer Actions menu.
( ! ) Not sure why 'connecting' is such a big deal? Check out our FAQs for how this helps your organization and your volunteers.