Sending Emails to Volunteers Using the Volunteer Management System

You have the ability to email volunteers directly from the admin area of the website. When someone signs up for a volunteer opportunity on your site, a volunteer profile is created for them so you can track their involvement and add your own notes. That profile is also tied to the specific volunteer opportunity, which allows you to email all of the registered volunteers at once, directly from your website.

Emailing volunteers through the Volunteer Management system allows you to track correspondence and keep them updated as the event nears. Plus you can easily send a thank you note after the fact, letting them know how grateful you are for their time. In this article, we’ll walk through how to send emails to volunteers using the Volunteer Management system.

Helpful Terminology

• A website form is anywhere a user can enter information in fields, which is then stored in the website’s database and can be viewed in the back end of the website.
• Individual form fields gather up specific information, like name, address or contact information.
• When sending emails from your website, variables are terms housed within brackets that allow you to personalize emails, using the information provided when a form was submitted. For example, the variable {contact_name}, will be replaced with the volunteer’s name when an email is sent.

Where Can I View Volunteers for a Specific Opportunity?

In order to email volunteers using the Volunteer Management system, you’ll need to have at least one volunteer sign up for the opportunity using the form on the website. Once a volunteer has signed up you’ll be able to view their information by:

1. Logging in to the back end of your website
2. Going to Volunteer Management and selecting Opportunities
3. Clicking on the specific opportunity name you’d like to work with

The name and contact information for registered volunteers appears beneath the details of the opportunity, under the “Volunteer Opportunity RSVPs” heading near the bottom of the page.

You’ll see a list of everyone who has signed up for the volunteer opportunity by submitting this form on your website. To view more details about a volunteer, select the linked volunteer name in the left-most column.

Sending a Volunteer Email

To send an email to registered volunteers,  you’ll need to be logged into your website. From the Dashboard, look in the left-hand admin menu, hover over Volunteer Management and select Opportunities. Select the opportunity you’d like to work with from the list of all opportunities.

To send your first email, scroll down past the opportunity details section to the “Email Your Volunteers” heading.

You can follow these steps to build out the content of your email:

• Add the subject line of your email to the Subject Line field. You can use the {opportunity_name} variable to add the opportunity name to the subject line.
• Add the content of the email to the text editor. You can add a greeting using the {contact_name} variable and use the {opportunity_date_time} and {opportunity_location} variables to remind volunteers about the details of the opportunity.
• Use the formatting options to style your email as needed.

Once you’ve written and reviewed your email, hit the blue “Send Email” button to send it to your volunteers.

How Can I View Past Emails?

Every email sent to volunteers for a specific opportunity can be seen by logging into your site and viewing that opportunity. Past emails display on the right-hand side under Document settings. Look for the ‘Emails to Volunteers’ section at the bottom of the list.