Mosaic Volunteers

Mosaic Volunteers helps you manage needs, manpower, and campaigns efficiently. Set a need and a manpower requirement, and let Volunteers do the rest.

Like all Mosaic plugins, Volunteers is designed to work independently. Additional Mosaic plugins only enhance functionality. Volunteers allows you to define specific volunteer and manpower needs, view coverage and gaps, and sends reminders, manages waitlists, and expires stale pledges automatically.

• Coverage and waitlists: every need/shift shows filled vs. needed. When something is full, further offers can waitlist; capacity and promotion are handled safely (no over booking).
• Roster & status actions: from the manager, open a sign-up roster and Confirm, Cancel, Promote (from waitlist), or mark Fulfilled / No-show. Cancelling frees a slot and auto-promotes the next waitlister.
• “+1” guests: a volunteer can bring others. Those guests have no email until they complete a required form, so the roster shows “brought by …” and excludes them from the “email everyone” list.
• Double-opt-in email: new email addresses get a confirmation link; reminders are sent as the date approaches. Reply-to and templates are configurable.
• Spam protection: optional Cloudflare Turnstile keys guard public sign-up.
• Coordinator dashboard: a “Volunteer Coverage” admin screen gives an at-a-glance fill/gap overview with roster drill-down; a CSV export is available.
• Settings: coordinator email, Turnstile keys, email templates/reply-to, and reminder behavior. 
• Automation: a background schedule sends reminders, releases waitlists, and expires stale pledges. It runs on WordPress cron — busy sites should confirm cron is firing.

If Mosaic Events and Mosaic Forms are present and activated Volunteers can link to specific events, and Volunteers are also linked to assigned forms (waivers, releases, etc.).

Shifts in volunteers are your manpower needs. You need x number of people to work y event. When integrated with Mosaic Events shifts can be linked and created directly in the event and cover the entire event or part of the event. Built with non-technical admins in mind, Volunteers also has a front-end manager that can be dropped on any page.

Editing shifts is done either in the dashboard or (if a page is created) the frontend manager. To edit an existing shift just hit the “edit” link to change applicable details.

Note that as of v1.2.0 shifts that linked to or created by Mosaic Events must be edited in the WordPress dashboard to modify shift times and lengths (if partial shifts). Partial shifts linked to or created by an event cannot currently be changed in the fronted editor other than description, campaigns, or number of people needed.

Needs in Mosaic Volunteers are physical requirements or things. E.g., “we need 100 boxes of crayons” or “food pantry donations are being collected”. Needs can be specific, i.e., “we need 100 boxes of crayons by 9/13 for an event on 9/25”. Needs can also be open-ended, i.e., “we need candy for an event on 10/31”. To demonstrate, we’ll add a need through the frontend manager (the same fields are exposed in the WordPress dashboard).

Some examples of open ended versus specific needs:

• Food pantry donations where we have no need to track sign-ups or what is donated. Tick both the “No set goal” and “Sign-up” options; this hides the sign-up button and removes any quantity tracking.
• Drinks for an event; tick the “No set goal” option, leave the “Sign-up” option unchecked. This allows volunteers to sign up to bring drinks to your event and they can bring whatever they can. No quantity tracked and as a admin you can see at a glance that someone is at least brining drinks.
• 50 hymnals for a capital campaign; leave both options unchecked. You want 50 hymnals; you don’t need 500. Check the strict cap option. Sign-ups will pledge an amount, once 50 is reached, additional sign-ups are waitlisted in the event previous pledges don’t hold up their commitment. 

Sign-ups are managed through the WordPress dashboard or the frontend manager. The Volunteer Coverage tab on the dashboard shows all current needs and shifts as well as coverage for those needs and shifts. Clicking the Roster link takes you directly to all sign-ups for that need/shift.

The front-end manager has enhanced functionality to email all volunteers signed up for a shift or a need. Additionally, you can mark volunteers as fulfilled, no-show, or cancel their sign-up. No-show functionality is built-in to help manage manpower needs when volunteers are chronically absent; while never ideal, it is a real-world scenario that unfortunately happens.

Sign-ups must be confirmed by email. Participants that are signing up for the first time must also confirm their email address (to make sure they are…well…real). Once an email is confirmed it will stay confirmed. Pledges or spots with an unconfirmed email stay available and show unfulfilled until that email is confirmed.

The easiest way to show opportunities on the frontend is to drop the [mosaic_volunteer_opportunities] shortcode on a page. This displays all current open needs and shifts, if any spots have been filled, and if linked to a campaign or event groups shifts and needs under that associated event or campaign.

When a volunteer clicks the sign up link they get directed to a sign-up form that asks for name, email, and phone. Optionally, if they are bringing multiple volunteers (e.g., a family), they can add people to the same sign-up. Additional volunteers are linked under the email used by the original volunteer.

Once a volunteer signs up for a role or need they will get an email either asking them to confirm their email (if not done already in another role) or confirming that they signed up. An additional reminder email is sent prior to the event or deadline.

If Mosaic Forms is installed and activated, forms that are assigned to the associated role are displayed using the “check status” shortcode. Users that enter their email in the field will get back any volunteer opportunities they are signed up for as well as any required forms (such as participation forms, volunteer forms, etc.)

While Mosaic Volunteers is functional as a standalone, to take advantage of all of its features it integrates with both Mosaic Events and/or Mosaic Forms.

When both Mosaic Events and Mosaic Volunteers are installed and activated, additional features include:

Additionally, when integrated with Events the shortcode for volunteer opportunities will group service opportunities under the linked event, otherwise they will be grouped by campaign (if assigned).

When combined with Mosaic Forms you will get additional options to require any of the 5 forms included with Mosaic Forms, as well as any external forms that may be required (e.g., a separate registration form or waiver for an externally hosted event).

• Ticking any of the forms will add that form as required for the event; if the General Event Participation form is required, any minor that volunteers will automatically have the Youth Activity Permission form added.
• The Volunteer Application & Background Check form, if required, will only show for participants that volunteered for that shift (e.g., if they register to participate in VBS, but volunteered for a shift at another event, the volunteer form only applies to the linked event and will show as such in the form status check).
• Volunteers will get an email with any required forms; if linked to an event the event reminder email will also include any missing forms that are required.