Opportunities are the heart of the Volunteer program: They're what your users see, and can apply to participate in, on the Volunteer Opportunities page (see image below).

TIP: A number of Volunteer items should be established prior to creating your Opportunities. So, before doing so, complete the other pages in the Volunteer section (define your Opportunity Types, create your application forms, etc.).

Access your Opportunities

Super Admins and Community Admins can manage volunteer Opportunities. Refer to the appropriate section below, depending on your admin permissions.

Super Admin

If you're a Super Admin who wants to view the Opportunities across your site:

In the Admin Toolbar, click Admin.

Navigate to Programs > Volunteer > List.

Community Admin

If you're a Community Admin managing volunteer Opportunities specific to your community:

Navigate to your community's Home page.
Click Settings > Manage Opportunities.

Create an Opportunity

Click the Create Opportunity button to begin the process; creating an Opportunity is a four-step process:

Step 1 - Define its details

Field	Description
Opportunity Type	Select the Opportunity Type that best fits the Opportunity you're creating (e.g., committee service, charity activities, etc.). NOTE: Opportunity Types determine a number of important settings, like who can view and participate in an Opportunity, whether participation requires users to submit an application that must be approved, and which emails are sent throughout the volunteer process. See Manage Volunteer Opportunity Types to learn more.
Title / Name	Give your Opportunity a name that gives potential volunteers a clear idea what to expect.
Application Form	NOTE: This field is only required if the selected Opportunity Type is configured to require approval for submissions. An application form is what volunteers must fill out when applying for the Opportunity. Regarding applications forms, you have two options: Select Create new application form with form builder to create a unique application form specifically for this Opportunity during Step 2. Select one of the pre-built applications forms that can be created on the Programs > Volunteer > Application Forms page. If you do this, the chosen form is shown during Step 2 but cannot be edited.
Description	Provide all necessary details potential volunteers need to know about the Opportunity here. This information appears on the Opportunity's details page.
Integration Code	The Integration Code is any text value you want to assign to this Opportunity. The value doesn't need to be unique for each Opportunity, and can support multiple business needs where an additional reference point (AMS opportunity/event key, Opportunity creator, Opportunity manager, community name, etc.) is desired to be stored in the AMS. NOTE: You can ignore this field if (a) you don't use sync data to an AMS with Activity Sync or (b) an additional reference point is simply not needed or desired.
Associated Community	If you want to associate the Opportunity to a specific community, select it here. If you do, after creating the Opportunity, a new option is available when editing it that allows you to only allow members of the selected community to apply/volunteer.
Primary Contact	Select who you want to be the Opportunity's main point-of-contact.
Location	Select whether the Opportunity is taking place at a physical location or online. If at a physical location, you'll be prompted to enter the address; if online, no further information is required.
Display Picture for Opportunity List and Details Page
Upload a picture	If you want to represent the Opportunity with an image, upload one here. NOTE: This image is used as a thumbnail on the Volunteer Opportunity listings page and the Opportunity's details page (the maximum dimensions on the detail page are 300px).
Dates
Is this open-ended?	Select whether the Opportunity is open-ended: If NO, you need to define a sign up deadline, a start and end date, and a publish date. If YES, you'll only need to define a start date and publish date. NOTE: Set a Publish Date to hide the Opportunity from the public until the date specified. Leave it blank for immediate inclusion in your Volunteer Opportunities list. If you edit an Opportunity, you will have to specify a new Start date. This does not impact other dates for the Opportunity.
Qualifications
Qualifications Necessary to Volunteer	If there are any qualifications you prefer volunteers have for this Opportunity, select them here. These qualifications simply reflect the credentials desired in a volunteer and do not limit participation. NOTE: The available qualifications are pulled from the Admin > Users > Demographics page; the qualifications you'll be able to select from here are determined by the Opportunity Type.
When inviting, match on:	This menu allows you to define whether potential volunteers must have ALL of the selected qualifications or ANY of them when matching users during Step 3.
Points, Volunteers, and Credits
Estimated hours per volunteer	This is where you: Specify how many hours will likely be required of volunteers Define the Experience Level multiplier to control how many points are awarded These two values are multiplied to determine the number of points volunteers will receive for completing the Opportunity.
Number of volunteers needed	Enter how many volunteers are needed for the Opportunity.
Number of Continuing Education (CE) credits	Enter how many CE credits volunteers will earn for completing the Opportunity. These credits are awarded at the same time as the points.
Email Templates For each template, select Do not send to not send it or select its corresponding template name from its menu. NOTE: See Email Templates, Automation Rules, and Reports to learn how to view and update these templates.
Invitation	Message sent to volunteers invited to apply for the opportunity.
Nomination	Message sent to volunteers nominated to apply for the opportunity. A value of 'Do not Send' will hide the Nominate Volunteers block on the Opportunity Detail page and users will be unable to nominate others for the affected opportunities.
Acknowledgement	Message sent to those who have signed up for the auto-approve opportunity.
Accept	Message sent to those who have applied for the opportunity and have been approved.
Reject	Message sent to those who have been rejected as not qualified for the opportunity.
Thank You	Message sent thanking volunteers who have fulfilled their opportunity commitment.

Step 2 - Build an application

NOTE: If this Opportunity's associated Opportunity Type is set to auto-approve, skip to Step 3.

If you selected one of the pre-built application forms from the Application Form menu during Step 1, that form is displayed but not editable. Continue to Step 3.

If you selected Create new application form with form builder during Step 1, you'll need to create an application form for the Opportunity. To do so, drag-and-drop the desired Content Elements on the right to the Application box on the left. You can order your elements by hovering one element above or below another element.

Most elements can be made a Required field, forcing applicants to fill them out, and you can add Help text to them if you need to provide instructions or explain a field's purpose in more detail.

TIP: To remove a field from your application, drag-and-drop it out of the Application box.

TIP: Your Thrive Community site's custom user profile Demographics (created on the Admin > Users > Demographics page) are available as elements on the Demographics tab.

Step 3 - Invite Volunteers

At this point, you can extend invitations to any of your users (or only to users within the associated community, if you associated one during Step 1) to volunteer for your Opportunity. While those who aren't invited can still apply, everyone you do invite is added to the Invitations Sent list, which provides two benefits: It makes it easy to track their application status and allows you to follow up with any or all of them via email at any time.

For this step:

The system indicates how many people match your Opportunity's requirements. If you'd like to tighten or loosen the requirements to potentially include or exclude more people, click-and-drag the slider.

NOTE: If your Opportunity is associated to a community, the slider includes users from that community only.

Click List of Invitees to see the current list of invitees. In this pop-up, you can also remove specific people, if you want to narrow the list.
Click Find and Invite Others to search for and invite additional people. Anyone added is then listed in the List of Invitees. (Only users who have opted-in to the Directory appear in search results.)

NOTE: You cannot set the default for Opportunity invitations to 0 volunteers. But you can set your Opportunity Types to not have invitation emails turned on by default so they won't send invitations unless you change them in the Opportunity level.

Step 4 - Add Volunteers

While inviting people is a great way to make them feel welcome, and makes it easy to follow up later, this step allows you to remove the need for people to go through the application process and simply add them to the Opportunity. This is ideal if there are specific people you know want or need to volunteer for an Opportunity.

After adding people, decide whether to:

Auto-approve them, making them volunteers immediately, or send them to the Waiting for Approval queue, where an admin can decide whether to approve them.
Send them an email notifying them of their approval or queued state.

NOTE: An email is only sent if the appropriate template exists and is active. See Manage Email Templates to learn how to manage your Volunteer-related email templates.

Manage an Opportunity's applicants

From the main Manage Opportunities page, click the drop-down arrow next to an Opportunity's EDIT button and select Manage Applicants.

On the resulting page, you can (reference the image to its associated lettered text below):

Edit the Opportunity's settings or click the drop-down to add specific volunteers (see Step 4 in the Create an Opportunity section above)
View all applicants waiting to have their applications approved. For each selected applicant, you can approve or reject their application, view their application, and email them.
View all applicants who have had their applications confirmed. For each selected applicant, you can reject their application, view their application, assign Roles (Roles are created on the Volunteer > Settings > Volunteer Roles page), give them points, adjust the points they can earn from completing the Opportunity (you can add and subtract points), and email them.
View everyone who's been invited to apply for the Opportunity. For each selected invitee, you can re-send an invitation and email them directly. You can also invite additional people (see Step 3 in the Create an Opportunity section above).
View all applicants who have had their applications rejected. For each selected applicant, you can undo the rejection (moving them back to the Waiting for Approval queue), view their application, and email them.
View all applicants you can rate. For each selected applicant, you can assign 1—5 stars, mark them as Did Not Attend, assign Roles, adjust the points they can earn from completing the Opportunity (you can add and subtract points), and email them.
View all applicants who have completed the Opportunity.

Manage an Opportunity

From the main Manage Opportunities page, click the drop-down arrow next to an Opportunity's EDIT button. Each of the management options available to you are discussed below:

Put on Hold - This removes the Opportunity from the Opportunities list so no one can apply. You can make it Active again by enabling the On Hold status from the Show Filters menu and selecting it from the Opportunity's Edit menu.
Build/Edit Application - Build an application for the Opportunity (see Step 2 in the Create an Opportunity section above) OR edit the current application, if one is already built.
View Opportunity Details - View the Opportunity's details.
Reports - View and run any of the available Volunteer reports.
Copy - Create a copy of the associated Opportunity, including all of its configured details and settings.
Delete - Delete the Opportunity.

NOTE: Higher Logic gives Admins the ability to "reindex" much of your community content, including Volunteer Opportunities. Reindexing is simply "refreshing" the content, similar to reloading a page in a web browser.

To learn about reindexing content in your community (e.g., who site can reindex content; which content can be reindexed), see Reindex Content Items.

Manage Volunteer Opportunities