Volunteer onboarding
When to use it
Section titled “When to use it”- A charity, school club, community group or event team recruits volunteers by a form or a link on social media.
- [object Object]
- A coordinator wants a weekly list of new sign-ups and how many orientations were done.
Where the data comes from
Section titled “Where the data comes from”| How | What |
|---|---|
| A form people fill in | The Volunteer sign-up form this playbook creates. Share its link on Instagram, WhatsApp groups, flyers and your website, or print it as a QR code. |
| A booking form | The Book an orientation form it creates: a date and time slot question. Each booking saves the time on the volunteer. |
| A form your staff fill in | An Orientation done form the coordinator fills when a volunteer has attended, matched by phone. |
What it sets up
Section titled “What it sets up”| Kind | Name | What it does | Lands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Volunteer coordinators | Calls new volunteers, runs orientation and gets the weekly report. | Empty |
| Form | Volunteer sign-up | The volunteer sign-up form. A hidden field marks every sign-up as an applicant. | Draft, not published |
| Form | Book an orientation | The orientation booking form. Each booking sends booking.created with the slot time. | Draft, not published |
| Form | Orientation done | Coordinator form to record that a volunteer attended orientation. Matched by phone; sets the status to active. | Draft, not published |
| Segment | Orientation within a day | An orientation within the next day. | Ready |
| Segment | Signed up, no orientation booked | Signed up two weeks ago or more and still no orientation booked. | Ready |
| Segment | Applicants | Signed up, not yet through orientation (for the report). | Ready |
| Segment | Active volunteers | Through orientation (for the report). | Ready |
| Template | Volunteer welcome (SMS) | Welcome SMS with the orientation booking link. | Ready |
| Template | Volunteer welcome (email) | Welcome email with the orientation booking link. | Ready |
| Template | Orientation booked (SMS) | Orientation booking confirmation. | Ready |
| Template | Orientation tomorrow (SMS) | Orientation reminder the day before. | Ready |
| Template | Orientation nudge (SMS) | A single nudge to book the orientation. | Ready |
| Template | Welcome to the team (SMS) | Welcome to the team after orientation. | Ready |
| Template | Welcome to the team (email) | Welcome to the team email after orientation. | Ready |
| Question | Report: volunteer sign-ups | How many people signed up in the period. | Ready |
| Question | Report: orientations done | How many volunteers were marked as through orientation in the period. | Ready |
| Question | Report: new volunteers (list) | Table of the week's sign-ups with area and skills, for the coordinator. | Ready |
| Report | Weekly: volunteers | The week's new volunteers and orientations done, to the coordinators. | Off |
| Follow-up | Volunteer: welcome | Saves the sign-up date, then welcomes the volunteer by SMS and email with the orientation link. | Off |
| Follow-up | Volunteer: welcome call | Call task for the coordinator; saves the outcome and note on the volunteer. | Off |
| Follow-up | Orientation booked | When an orientation is booked, save its time on the volunteer and send the confirmation. | Off |
| Follow-up | Orientation cancelled | A cancelled booking clears the saved time, so no reminder goes out. | Off |
| Follow-up | Orientation reminder | Hourly run over "orientation within a day"; one reminder per orientation. | Off |
| Follow-up | Volunteer: orientation nudge | Daily run over "signed up, no orientation booked"; one nudge. | Off |
| Follow-up | Volunteer: welcome to the team | Welcomes a volunteer to the team when the coordinator marks orientation done. | Off |
The questions it asks
Section titled “The questions it asks”| # | Question | Default | Fills in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What should messages call your organisation? | none, must answer | org_name |
| 2 | Who looks after new volunteers? (it can be just you) | Volunteer coordinators | coordinator_team |
| 3 | What skills or kinds of help do you need? One per line. Volunteers tick all that apply. | Teaching or tutoring, Cooking or catering, Driving, Admin and data entry, Fundraising and events, First aid | skills |
| 4 | Which areas do volunteers live in or serve? One per line. Leave a general one if you only work in one place. | Central, North, South | areas |
| 5 | Where is the orientation, and what should volunteers bring? | none, must answer | orientation_place |
Other settings
Section titled “Other settings”These have defaults. Change any that don’t fit.
| Setting | Default | Key |
|---|---|---|
| Sender address | ‹workspace default_sender› | email_from |
| Number volunteers can call or message | ‹workspace phone› | coordinator_phone |
| Hours the coordinator has to call a new volunteer | 48 | call_due_hours |
| Days after sign-up before the nudge | 14 | nudge_after_days |
| Weekly report (five-field cron, in the time zone below) | 0 8 * * 1 | weekly_report_cron |
| Time zone | ‹workspace timezone› | timezone |
| Default phone country on the forms | ‹workspace country› | default_country |
| Greeting when a first name is missing | there | greeting_fallback |
Timings
Section titled “Timings”- Welcome SMS and email straight after sign-up, with the orientation booking link.
- A call task for Volunteer coordinators at the same time, due in 48 hours.
- A booking is confirmed by SMS straight away. The reminder runs every hour and goes out when the orientation is less than a day away.
- 14 days after sign-up, volunteers with no orientation booked get one SMS nudge (runs daily at 10:00).
- The welcome to the team goes out as soon as the Orientation done form is filled.
- Weekly report on the schedule 0 8 * * 1.
Channels
Section titled “Channels”| Channel | Needed for | Before it can send |
|---|---|---|
| sms | Welcome, booking confirmation, reminder, nudge and the welcome to the team | An SMS provider, or Origamy managed SMS after business verification (KYC). |
| The welcome and the welcome to the team; the weekly report | A verified sending domain for ‹workspace default_sender›. |
What you need to do
Section titled “What you need to do”- Open the Book an orientation form in the form builder and choose your orientation service (its length and the days it runs) on the date and time question. A booking form can't be published until it has a service.
- Add people to the Volunteer coordinators team. A task assigned to an empty team reaches nobody.
- After each orientation, the coordinator fills the Orientation done form for every volunteer who came (phone number only). That marks them active and sends the welcome to the team.
- Publish the three forms, verify the sending domain, connect an SMS provider or finish business verification, then switch the follow-ups and the report on. Test with your own phone.
- If you work with children or vulnerable people, run your own checks and references before anyone is placed. This playbook only organises the first steps.
- Volunteers sign up on their phones, usually from a WhatsApp group or an Instagram post. Keep the form short and put its link, or a QR code, wherever you recruit. Ask for a WhatsApp-capable number.
- Run orientations on fixed days (for example the first Saturday of each month) and set exactly those days in the booking service. A small number of well-attended sessions is easier to run than many bookings.
- The orientation reminder and the “Orientation done” form are what keep the numbers honest: without the form, nobody moves from applicant to active and the weekly report stays flat.
- If volunteers work with children or vulnerable adults, do your references and background checks outside this playbook, and don’t put any of that information in a form answer that messages use.
This playbook is synthesized: no customer has run it with us yet. If you build it, tell us what you changed, and we’ll replace it with the real version.
Copilot eval
Section titled “Copilot eval”The request used to test the copilot on this playbook (a live eval):
We're a small charity that works with volunteers. Make a sign-up form that asks for skills, availability and area. When someone signs up, text and email them a link to book an orientation, and give our volunteer coordinator a task to call them within 2 days. Remind them by SMS the day before their orientation. If they haven't booked after 2 weeks, nudge them once. When we mark orientation done, welcome them to the team. Send the coordinator a weekly summary of sign-ups and orientations.
It passes when every piece is a valid draft and everything lands off, with at least: form, segment, workflow, message_template, report. It must never use: discount, cart, checkout, purchase, revenue, customers, upsell.