Volunteers
Volunteer Activities in DonorDock allow your organization to track volunteer service completed by contacts. This helps you maintain a fuller picture of how someone is involved with your organization beyond financial giving and direct communications.
Volunteer Activities can be used to record participation in events, office support, committee work, program assistance, community service, or other volunteer contributions. Once recorded, the Activity becomes part of the contact's engagement history and can be reviewed alongside their gifts, communications, and other interactions.
Available Fields When Creating a Volunteer Activity
When creating a Volunteer Activity, you will be prompted to complete fields that describe the service provided, when it occurred, and any additional context your organization wants to retain.
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Subject (labeled as Description of Service when viewing activity) | A short description or name of the volunteer activity *Required |
Contact | The individual, household, or organization associated with the volunteer service *Required |
Assigned To | The team member associated with the Activity. This defaults to the user creating the Activity but may be changed to another team member |
Add to this user's Action's Board | A toggle to set to True if you want the incomplete activity to appear on the activity owner's Action Board |
Volunteer Date | The date the volunteer service occurred or is scheduled to occur |
Volunteer Hours | The number of hours contributed through the volunteer service |
Priority | The priority of the Activity: Low, Medium, or High |
Status | Indicates whether the Volunteer Activity is Incomplete, Complete, or Canceled |
Notes | Additional information about the volunteer service or the contact's participation |
Completion Note | A summary related to the completed Activity. This field is only available when the Activity is marked Complete |
Campaign | Campaign associated with the Volunteer Activity |
Appeal | Appeal associated with the Volunteer Activity |
Fund | Fund associated with the Volunteer Activity |
Record Completed Volunteer Service
Volunteer Activities are commonly used after service has taken place so your organization can preserve a record of the contact's participation and hours.
When recording completed volunteer service:
Select the contact who volunteered.
Enter a clear Description of Service.
Set the Volunteer Date to the date the service occurred.
Enter the applicable Volunteer Hours.
Set the status to Complete.
Add a Completion Note or additional Notes when useful.
Associate the Activity with a Campaign or Appeal when applicable.
Click Create and Save.
Recording volunteer service consistently can make it easier to understand how actively contacts are involved with your organization and to report on volunteer participation over time.
Track Upcoming Volunteer Service
Volunteer Activities may also be created in advance when you want to track planned service before it occurs.
In this case, enter the planned date and service information, then set the Activity status to Incomplete. If appropriate, the Activity can also be added to the ActionBoard for the assigned team member to monitor.
After the volunteer service takes place, reopen the Activity and update the status to Complete. You can then add the actual volunteer hours, a Completion Note, and any additional details about the service provided.
If the planned volunteer activity will no longer occur, update the status to Canceled so the original plan remains part of the Activity history.
Track Volunteer Hours
The Volunteer Hours field allows your organization to record the amount of time contributed through each Volunteer Activity. Tracking hours at the Activity level can provide a more complete picture of volunteer involvement and supports reporting on service contributed across your organization.
When entering volunteer hours, use the amount associated with that specific Activity. If a contact volunteers on multiple dates or for separate types of service, creating separate Volunteer Activities can help keep the history clear and make reporting more meaningful.
Add Details About Volunteer Service
Use the Description of Service and Notes fields to capture useful context about the work being performed.
The Description of Service should provide a clear summary of what the volunteer did, while Notes can be used for additional information such as the program supported, responsibilities handled, special instructions, or other details your team may want to reference later.
Keeping this information with the Volunteer Activity helps future team members understand not only that the contact volunteered, but how they contributed.
Once created, Volunteer Activities become part of the contact's Activity history and can be reviewed through the Contact record, Activity Reports, associated Campaigns or Appeals, and other applicable areas of DonorDock.
You can reopen a Volunteer Activity later to update the assigned team member, date, hours, status, notes, Campaign, Appeal, or other available information.
For more information about locating, editing, completing, canceling, or deleting Activities, see Viewing and Managing Activities.