Wired Impact Volunteer Management

Description

A simple, free way to keep track of your nonprofit’s volunteers and opportunities.

How can the Wired Impact Volunteer Management plugin help your nonprofit?

  • Post one-time and flexible volunteer opportunities on your website – Promote volunteer opportunities on any page of your website using a simple block.
  • Volunteers can sign up directly on your website – Make volunteering even easier for your supporters by giving them the option to sign up for an opportunity directly on your website. A confirmation email will be sent to you and the volunteer once they sign up.
  • Control the number of signups available for opportunities – Only need 10 people to help out at an event? Set a cap on the number of people who can sign up. Want as many volunteers as you can get? No problem. You don’t have to set a limit.
  • Send reminder emails anytime – Schedule an automated reminder email a few days in advance or send a one-off email with last-minute details.
  • Volunteer profiles that track participation and more – Keep track of all of your volunteers’ involvement. See what they’ve helped out with in the past, future opportunities they’re signed up for, how long they’ve been volunteering and notes that will help you stay organized.

Thanks to Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley for being an awesome organization and letting us use the photo above.

Screenshots

  • Advertise Volunteer Opportunities More Easily
  • Make Signing Up to Volunteer Simple
  • Control the Number of Volunteers Needed
  • Send Customized Reminder Emails
  • View Volunteer Profiles
  • Easily Preview the Opportunities List in the Admin Using the Volunteer Opportunities Block

Blocks

This plugin provides 1 block.

  • Volunteer Opportunities

Installation

How do I install the plugin?

This is the easiest way to install the Wired Impact Volunteer Management plugin:

  1. In the WordPress backend, go to Plugins >> Add New Plugin
  2. Search for “Wired Impact Volunteer Management”
  3. Click “Install Now”
  4. Click “Activate”

If this doesn’t work, follow these steps:

  1. Download the Wired Impact Volunteer Management plugin
  2. Unzip the files
  3. Upload the wired-impact-volunteer-management folder to the /wp-content/plugins directory of your website
  4. Activate the Wired Impact Volunteer Management plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress

FAQ

How do I get started?

Once you’ve downloaded the plugin, you’ll want to adjust the settings to fit your specific needs.

You can do this by visiting the Volunteer Management menu and clicking “Help & Settings”. Here, you can do things like:

  • Choose to include our styles
  • Set a default contact and location for volunteer opportunities
  • Pick your default form settings
  • Write a template message for your confirmation and reminder emails

How do I create a new volunteer opportunity?

  1. In the Volunteer Management menu, click “Opportunities”
  2. On the Opportunities page, click “Add Volunteer Opportunity”
  3. Fill in all of the “Volunteer Opportunity Details” fields
  4. Click the blue “Publish” button

How do I display a list of volunteer opportunities on my website?

You can display the opportunities by adding the Volunteer Opportunities block to your page content. Once added, use the block’s toolbar to show one-time or flexible opportunities.

It’s not currently possible to display both types of opportunities in a single list. We recommend showing only one type of opportunity per page.

What is the difference between the two types of opportunities?

One-time volunteer opportunities happen at a fixed date and time. One example might be a trivia night fundraiser where you need volunteers to help check in attendees.

Flexible volunteer opportunities can happen on different days and times. One example might be weekly tutoring. Another example could be looking for a volunteer to help with your social media or blog.

How do I add a volunteer to our database?

Volunteers appear in the database after signing up for an opportunity. You can’t manually add a volunteer to the database.

How do I add notes about a volunteer?

  1. In the Volunteer Management menu, click “Volunteers”
  2. Click the name of the volunteer you’d like to add a note about
  3. Click “Edit Volunteer Info”
  4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to the Notes section
  5. Add or edit any notes
  6. Click “Update User” to save any changes

How do I remove a volunteer from a specific opportunity?

If a volunteer is no longer able to help out with a specific opportunity, you can remove them from the signup list.

  1. Click “Opportunities” from the Volunteer Management menu
  2. Find the opportunity you need to remove the volunteer from
  3. Click the opportunity to edit
  4. Scroll down to the RSVP list, find the volunteer’s name and click “Remove RSVP”
  5. Confirm their removal by clicking the blue “Remove RSVP” button

You can also remove the RSVP through that individual volunteer’s profile.

How do I create a recurring opportunity?

If you have a recurring opportunity where different people will sign up each time, we recommend creating a one-time opportunity for each date and time. That will allow you to track the RSVPs separately.

If the recurring opportunity will have the same volunteers each time, we recommend creating one flexible volunteer opportunity.

How can I adjust the built-in volunteer signup form?

There are three options for handling volunteer signups within the plugin:

  1. Use the built-in volunteer signup form which includes name, phone number and email address fields. This form can be modified, but only through code using the PHP template files included inside the plugin.
  2. Choose the option not to show a form, then manually embed a third-party form within the content of each volunteer opportunity.
  3. If you’re utilizing the Gravity Forms plugin, you can show a form you’ve built within your volunteer opportunities. Information can be passed into the volunteer management system using a form feed.

Within the Help & Settings page, you can set a default form to use when new opportunities are created. You can also modify which form is displayed when editing an individual volunteer opportunity.

Reviews

Muzigo 7, 2023 3 replies
Hi together,I have to change the basic form from your plugin. Now I have a really important question about the security 🙂 Is your form really safe against SQL injection, attacks and so on?Regards Mia
Ogwomunaana (Muwakanya) 14, 2022 1 reply
And I doubt they will ever be implemented. Some of them that were suggested over 4 years ago have not been added, despite the author acknowledging their usefulness and were “high on our radar”. I expect I’ll be referred to other plugins as other reviewers were, so this review is mostly to alert potential users to this plugin’s important shortcomings, rather than a [likely] fruitless appeal to disinterested devs. One of the missing features is a time slot selector for the volunteer to choose their desired time of service. Going hand in hand with this would be specificity in the volunteer limit – i.e., the front page should inform the potential volunteer of how many volunteer slots are available for all times as set by the admin. The absence of this basic functionality results in unnecessary delays and extra effort from everyone involved. The volunteer signs up, the admin/organizer is notified, the admin/organizer must then contact the volunteer to ascertain when they’re available, the volunteer must then contact the admin/organizer to inform them if available/interested. Actually, the admin/organizer would probably need to contact just about ALL the volunteers individually in some cases. What if a volunteer can only serve at say 3pm for an all-afternoon event. Another volunteer has claimed 3pm but is flexible and other time slots are empty. Volunteer #2 is willing to serve at a different time so volunteer #1 can take #2’s slot. So on and so forth until agreements can be reached, if at all. This can be a massive waste of time and effort, especially if it ultimately turns out the volunteer(s) can’t/won’t serve after all. All of that can be remedied with just 2 elements on the sign up page: a “remaining slots open” status notice (per time options set by admin) and a “I’m available at these times” multi-select dropdown on the sign up page. The plugin would automatically shift time assignments around to eliminate empty slots, all without further effort/input from any volunteers or the admin. No fuss. No muss. Boom. Scheduling resolved in seconds. There should also be an option for users to edit/delete their “pledge” (not that they would necessarily bother returning just to cancel; common courtesy is rare these days). Users are assigned the role “Volunteer” when they sign up, so integration with member plugins such as Ultimate Member would be perfect. Or, at least there should be hooks so we can do it with our own functions. Creating a separate UM form just for volunteers is easy, but we’d still need to hook into profile edits (we’d need the “I’m available at these times” dropdown there as well). +1 on the suggestion of a calendar format. Much enhanced aesthetics and functional layout. As to complexity, these things add very little to the admin panel and front end pages. The learning curve remains insignificant. The UX is greatly enhanced and page display remains minimal.
Kafuumuulampawu 19, 2022 1 reply
My client has a few volunteer positions each year but only a very small team to recruit and manage them. Wired Impact Volunteer Management has made it so easy for them to organise things. I’ve used this plugin on previous versions of their site without any issue but this was the first time I had a problem. Support was swift and effective, extremely helpful, beyond expectation. Highly recommended.
Sseeboaseka 17, 2020 1 reply
This plugin does a great job of allowing us to publicise our volunteer needs and the support was good when I had a small development request, allowing me to customise the listings with just a small amount of additional PHP and CSS
Ogwekkumi (Mukulukusa) 19, 2018 1 reply
Great
Read all 24 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Wired Impact Volunteer Management” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Wired Impact Volunteer Management” has been translated into 2 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Wired Impact Volunteer Management” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

2.4

  • Updated microcopy throughout the plugin to improve clarity.

2.3

  • Added custom Gravity Forms notification merge tags to allow volunteer opportunity details to be included dynamically.
  • For clarity, hid the RSVP and volunteer email admin meta boxes if no volunteer RSVPs will be stored for an opportunity.

2.2

  • Introduced settings to enable or disable certain email notifications to volunteers, admins and volunteer opportunity contacts.

2.1

  • Added the ability to pass volunteer data submitted in Gravity Forms to the volunteer management system.
  • Hides the chosen Gravity Forms form if no more volunteer spots are available.
  • Removed bug fix for the ‘Visual’ tab of the editor used to email volunteers now that the issue is fixed in WordPress Core.
  • Stopped loading jQuery UI styles across the entire admin since it was conflicting with other plugins.

2.0

  • Included the ability for admins to remove the built-in signup form from volunteer opportunities.
  • Integrated with the Gravity Forms plugin to allow admins to replace the built-in signup form with a Gravity Forms form.
  • Added Cypress end-to-end test coverage for some of the plugin’s functionality.
  • Tested up to WordPress 6.4.

1.5

  • Upgraded Google Analytics tracking to work with Google Analytics 4.

1.4.9

  • Tested up to WordPress 6.1.

1.4.8

  • Fixed strange formatting in the Volunteer Opportunities block toolbar.
  • Upgraded build tools to use Webpack 5.
  • Tested up to WordPress 6.0.

1.4.7

  • Fixed bug where users without the capability to edit other users were seeing instructions to edit volunteer notes.

1.4.6

  • Adjusted the Volunteer Opportunities block registration so it can’t be added to Volunteer Opportunities, or as a widget on the Widgets admin page or in the customizer.
  • Fixed PHP notices caused by undefined variables when a new instance of the Volunteer Management Opportunities widget was created.
  • Tested up to WordPress 5.8.

1.4.5

  • Updated the Toolbar component of the Volunteer Opportunities block to adhere to the WordPress development guidelines for the component, and to fix a deprecation in which a Toolbar component requires a label prop.
  • Added a fix for using the ‘Visual’ tab of the editor used to email volunteers.
  • Tested up to WordPress 5.7.

1.4.4

  • Tested up to WordPress 5.6.

1.4.3

  • Fixed issue when sorting volunteers by phone number.
  • Updated NPM packages for improved security.
  • Updated ServerSideRender block component to load directly from ‘wp’ global.
  • Tested up to WordPress 5.5.

1.4.2

  • Updated the transforms property of the Volunteer Opportunities block.
  • Fixed support of the Additional CSS Class for the Volunteer Opportunities block.
  • Added anchor support for the Volunteer Opportunities block.
  • Tested up to WordPress 5.4.

1.4.1

  • Tested up to WordPress 5.3.

1.4

  • Added a block to use in WordPress 5.0+ to display volunteer opportunities.
  • Added the ability to change the ‘Help & Settings’, ‘Volunteers’, and ‘Volunteer’ subpage names using the ‘wivm_submenu_page_name’ filter.
  • Added the ability to hide the ‘Help’ tab using the ‘wivm_show_help_tab’ filter.
  • Modified the CSS styling used for the datepicker to minimize conflicts with other plugins and themes.
  • Tested up to WordPress 5.2.

1.3.12

  • Made the Volunteer Opportunity custom post type available via the REST API so it utilizes the new Gutenberg content editor.
  • Tested up to WordPress 5.0.

1.3.11

  • Improved accessibility by removing all tabindex HTML attributes from the frontend form and the WordPress admin.

1.3.10

  • Added ability to overwrite the default WordPress page navigation using a WordPress filter.
  • Added a class to the signup form heading so it’s easier to style.

1.3.9

  • Fixed rare object caching cron issue which caused the automated reminder email to be sent multiple times to volunteers.

1.3.8

  • Fixed potential plugin conflict where read more text for volunteer opportunities could appear in the wrong place.

1.3.7

  • Fixed bug so the volunteer phone numbers and notes are no longer shared between subsites on a multisite setup.
  • Further prevented the volunteer signup form from showing multiple times on a page if another plugin uses the_content() code in other places.

1.3.6

  • Tested up to WordPress 4.9.
  • Fixed bug where the number of custom emails sent to volunteers for an opportunity might have displayed incorrectly.

1.3.5

  • Fixed bug where translating “Volunteer Mgmt” would break the Help & Settings admin page.

1.3.4

  • Fixed bug where date and timepicker conflicted with other plugins in the WordPress admin.

1.3.3

  • Fixed multisite bug where volunteers weren’t displaying on the Volunteers page if they had already signed up through another subsite.
  • Fixed multisite bug where volunteer opportunity URLs were broken if the plugin had been network-activated.

1.3.2

  • Tested up to WordPress 4.8 and adjusted admin headings for improved accessibility.

1.3.1

  • Fixed bug where sidebar widget wasn’t linking correctly to pages with opportunities on WordPress multisite installations.

1.3

  • Added a honeypot spam protection feature to the volunteer signup form.

1.2

  • Adjusted the plugin to allow for full translation including opportunity times and phone numbers.

1.1.1

  • Fixed bug where automatic email reminders were not sending to volunteers in some cases.
  • Tested up to WordPress 4.7.

1.1

  • Added widget to allow admins to list volunteer opportunities in the sidebar or other widgetized areas.

1.0.4

  • Added additional arguments to one hook and one filter for further custom development flexibility.

1.0.3

  • Fixed bug where all users were shown in the volunteer list if no RSVPs had taken place.
  • Adjusted plugin permissions for clearer and easier editing for different WordPress user roles.
  • Tested up to WordPress 4.5.

1.0.2

  • Fixed bug where some users were not being included in the volunteers list view when they should be.

1.0.1

  • Fixed issue where template override directory was changed to match text domain.

1.0

  • Tested and confirmed as stable version 1.0 release.
  • Set up Google Analytics event tracking when someone RSVPs for a volunteer opportunity.

0.5.1

  • Improved subject and body error messages for sending custom emails.
  • Separated opportunity styling and form messages from certain classes, increasing compatibility with themes.

0.5.0

  • Added ability to send custom emails to volunteers registered for an opportunity.
  • Added new meta box to display the list of all emails sent to volunteers.
  • Replaced deprecated update_usermeta function with update_user_meta.

0.4.2

  • Updated plugin to allow for translation.

0.4.1

  • Added ability to filter different opportunity types in the WordPress admin.
  • Added ability to sort the opportunities by date in the WordPress admin.
  • Tested up to WordPress 4.4.

0.3.1

  • Made individual volunteer view responsive so it shows correctly on all device widths.
  • Adjusted system used to add new settings in the future.

0.2.1

  • Fixed bug where admin notice would show again after the settings were changed.

0.2

  • Added admin notice when plugin is activated directing people to tips on how to get started.
  • Adjusted how templates are loaded for a single volunteer opportunity to improve theme compatibility.

0.1

  • Initial release.