Self-Reporting Opportunity Types is a feature of your Volunteer program that gives your volunteers the ability to showcase the volunteering experience that they've had outside of your organization. For example, prior to joining your organization, one of your current volunteers might have volunteered (and might still):

• with a national charity or
• at a local animal shelter.

While these volunteering activities and experiences are not associated with or managed by your organization, they are still very valuable and worth recognizing. The Self-Reporting Opportunity Types feature lets your volunteers include these experiences on their Volunteer profiles (profile > My Profile > My Volunteer Profile).

After you create "self-reporting types" for external experiences, they are available for your volunteers to add in the My Volunteer History section of their own Volunteer profiles.

TIP: The Self-Reporting Opportunity Types that you create for your organization should be somewhat generic because, by design, they are just a way for your volunteers to indicate their past experiences; a lot of detail isn't necessary.

NOTE: My Volunteer History is the default name of this section. It might be labeled differently in your community; e.g., External Volunteering.

Access and manage your Self-Reporting Opportunity Types

NOTE: Super Admins and Volunteer Admins can manage Self-Reporting Opportunity Types.

This section describes how to access and manage (edit, delete) your organization's Self-Reporting Opportunity Types.

TIP: The next section is dedicated to the "create" process.

To access your Self-Reporting Opportunity Types:

1. In the Admin Toolbar, click Admin.

2. Navigate to Programs > Volunteer > Types.

3. On the Opportunity Types page, click the Self-Reporting Types tab.

The list of Self-Reporting Opportunity Types is sorted alphabetically by name and is filtered to Active.

NOTE: Click the Filter by dropdown and select Inactive to review any Self-Reporting Opportunity Types that are currently unavailable. The Inactive view is identical and has the same options; click Edit to access the "active" toggle to re-activate an item.

The rows indicate the point value of each volunteer activity and that it is active.

Edit a Self-Reporting Opportunity Type

1. In the Actions column of the item that you want to edit, click Edit.

The dialog that opens is identical to the "create" dialog (described below); you can make changes to the item's:

• name,
• description,
• point value, and/or
• Active state.

Delete a Self-Reporting Opportunity Type

TIP: Deleting a Self-Reporting Opportunity Type is an irrevocable action. Before deleting one, consider setting it to Inactive instead, in case you want to use it again in future.

1. In the Actions column of the item that you want to delete, click the down-arrow icon.
2. Click Delete.

The Self-Reporting Opportunity Type is immediately deleted and:

• it is no longer available for your volunteers to add to their profiles.
• cannot be "undeleted;" you have to create a new Self-Reporting Opportunity Type.

Create a Self-Reporting Opportunity Type

NOTE: Super Admins and Volunteer Admins can create Self-Reporting Opportunity Types.

You can create as many Self-Reporting Opportunity Types as necessary to accommodate your volunteers' prior external-volunteering experiences.

To create a Self-Reporting Opportunity Type:

1. Click Create.
2. On the Self Reporting Type dialog:

• specify a name for the Self-Reporting Opportunity Type. This field is required.
• provide a description of the Self-Reporting Opportunity Type. This makes it easier for other Admins to understand its purpose and decreases the likelihood of duplicate Self-Reporting Opportunity Types.
• set a point value for the Self-Reporting Opportunity Type that your volunteers users can claim for the associated activity.

NOTE: Setting a value is discretionary and is not recommended. Refer to Self-Reporting Opportunity Types points, below, for information.

• accept the Active state to have the Self-Reporting Opportunity Type be available upon creation (or toggle it to Inactive if you do not want it to be immediately available).

3. Click Save.
4. Review the list and verify that your new Self-Reporting Opportunity Type displays as expected.

Your new Self-Reporting Opportunity Type will now be available for your volunteers to add to their Volunteer profiles (described in the next section).

Self-Reporting Opportunity Types on Volunteer profiles

Your volunteers can add their prior volunteering experiences via the Add Other Experiences button on their Volunteer profile.

When they click this button, the Add/Edit External Volunteer Experience dialog displays and allows them to select a type (that an Admin has created and configured) and provide the relevant information; the external experience then displays on their profile:

Self-Reporting Opportunity Types points

Allowing your volunteers to list their past volunteering experiences is a good way to foster their engagement with your volunteering opportunities, but...

...because these opportunities have occurred outside of your organization, it's probably unlikely that you will want to verify that they've actually been completed.

Because of this, Higher Logic cautions you against awarding points for these past, unverifiable volunteering claims.

NOTE: If you do want to acknowledge your volunteers' past accomplishments, consider setting a low point value (e.g., 1 or 2) to your Self-Reporting Opportunity Types.

Related articles

• To learn how to manage your organization's Opportunity Types, see Manage Volunteer Opportunity Types.
• To learn how to add and manage Self-Reporting Opportunity Types on your Volunteer profile, see Volunteer Profile Setup.