How to create a volunteering event – Inspire (Catalyser V2)

As an admin, you can create volunteering events for employees to browse and register for. This article walks you through the event creation flow, from choosing who you're supporting through to publishing the event live.

Before you start

Open the left-hand navigation bar and select Create giving activities.

Select the Add giving activity button in the top right-hand corner of the page.

When prompted to choose the type of activity you want to set up, select Volunteer.

Steps to create volunteering event

Step 1. Who you're supporting

Select the type of volunteering:
- General – Gave my time. This is open to anyone, though you can add waivers or physical fitness requirements later so employees know what to expect.
- Skilled – Gave professional skills. This is for volunteering that draws on an employee's professional expertise.
Select who you're volunteering for:
- Registered charity – a formally registered charity.
- Other organisations – for example, schools or smaller community organisations that aren't registered charities.
- Use the Search Name and charity ID field to find the charity or organisation.
- Learn more about the difference between registered charities and other organisations.

Note: Selecting a charity or organisation will automatically populate the cause area and UN SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) for the event. However, these can be edited. Simply hover over over a SDG tag and select the X to remove it. Similarly, select the X on any cause area to remove it.

Step 2. Why volunteer

Giving activity title – enter a title for the event.
Short summary – a short summary. This appears on the event tile on the Search giving activities page and on the event page itself, so it's worth making this engaging.
Giving activity description – use the rich text editor to describe the activity. Formatting options include bold, italic, underline, quote, text alignment, bullet/numbered lists, and links.
Keywords – add relevant keywords to improve the discoverability of your giving activity during search. Type a keyword and press enter to add it. You can add multiple keywords this way.
Label – helps you organise your activities to suit your company's needs.
- Select an existing label from the Select Label field, or select Create a New Label to add one.
- In the Create a label window:
  - Name – enter the label name.
  - Label visibility – toggle Public on if the label should be visible to all employees and admins, or leave it off if the label should only be visible to admins (useful for internal team organisation).
  - Label colour – select a colour and/or enter a hex code.
  - Public display – tick Volunteer Search and/or Donation Search to control which tab of the Search giving activities page the label appears on as a filter, helping employees narrow down activities further.
- Select Save to create the label, or Cancel to close without saving.
Select Save and continue to proceed to the next step.

Step 3. When

Date – enter the event date.
Time zone – search and select the relevant time zone (e.g. Australia/Sydney).
Start time and End time – enter the session times.
How many volunteer spots are available?
- Open – unlimited places.
- Limited – set a minimum number of places needed to run the event and a maximum availability.
Do you want to automatically close registrations before the start date? – if yes, enter a Registration deadline date. New registrations won't be accepted after this date.
Would you like to give this time slot a name? – optionally enter a Session name.
Select Save to save this date/session.
To add more sessions or dates for this event, select Add another date and repeat the steps above.
Once you've added all your sessions, select Save and continue.

Note: Each saved date/session displays a summary (date, time, time zone, volunteer spots, registration deadline) with an Edit option, so you can review or update it before continuing.

Step 4. Where

Select how volunteers will attend:
- In-person venue – use the map, or enter details manually:
  - Venue Name
  - Address – search field, or select Enter my location manually to type it in.
  - Suburb, Postcode, State, Country
  - Venue parking and location instructions – rich text field (1000 character limit) to help volunteers locate the venue, e.g. parking or street entrance details. This is included in the meeting invitation.
- Online – enter a meeting link in Insert meeting link. If you don't have one yet, you can leave this blank and add it later — volunteer calendar invites will be updated automatically once you do.
Select Save and continue, or Skip to review to bypass the remaining setup steps, including adding requirements and registration questions.

Step 5. Other Requirements

Volunteering requirements – search and select any mandatory requirements or certifications volunteers need (e.g. Barangay Clearance). If you can't find what you need, select Add a new requirement.
Document requirement submission – this section appears once you've added at least one requirement above. It's optional to complete — only fill it in if you need volunteers to submit supporting documents. Configure how volunteers should submit them:
- Document upload URL – e.g. a link to your own secure storage such as SharePoint.
- Email address(es) – a dedicated email address for submissions.
- Other instructions – manual instructions, e.g. "Submit in person at the front desk."
Additional requirements – rich text field for any other requirement details.
Collect volunteer details
- Ask a question during registration – select an existing question from the drop-down, or select Create a new question to add one. Individual information is collected at registration; if a team registers, a questionnaire is sent with their registration confirmation instead.
Volunteer event contact – provide a contact for volunteers seeking more information:
- Name of contact
- Email
- Contact number (select the country code, then enter the number)
- Tick Make team leader the primary contact once assigned if you'd like the assigned team leader to become the event contact — once a team leader is assigned, their details will replace the contact entered above.
Registration settings
- Allow public registrations – toggle on to let employees register family and friends for this event. Learn more about registering for a volunteering event, including how public registrations work during sign-up.
Select Save & Continue.

Step 6. Review

Optionally select Add Image to upload a banner image for the event.
Select Share this campaign to share a preview, or Save to featured collection to add it to a collection.
Review each section, using the pencil/edit icon on each card to make changes without leaving the Review step:
- Title, description, and cause area/SDG tags — select the X on any tag to remove it, then search to add a new one
- Location
- Date/session details
- Short description
- Requirements
- Registration questions & documents
- Registration settings
The right-hand panel shows a live preview of how the sign-up widget will appear to volunteers, including remaining spots and existing registrations.
Select Save & Continue once you're happy with the details.

Step 7. Publish

If your campaign has a set end date, tick I have an end date for my campaign. Once the end date passes, the giving activity will no longer be visible to employees. [Exact fields revealed by this checkbox are unconfirmed — no screenshot available.]
Visibility
- Start date, Start time, and Time zone – set when the event should go live and become visible.
Who can see this giving activity?
- Public – shared to all staff. Select which offices this applies to under Which offices should this giving activity be visible to? You can select one or more offices.
- Private – shared to selected teams. Select which teams this applies to under Which teams should this giving activity be visible to? You can select one or more teams.
Select Submit to publish the event.

Note: When an event's visibility is set to Private, the event page displays a VIP event: visibility restricted to select teams banner to flag to visitors that access is limited to their specific teams.

Confirmation and next steps

Once submitted, you'll see a confirmation page confirming your giving activity is live. From here you can:

Select Go to Giving activity to view the published event page.
Select Back to all Giving Activities to return to the activities list.

The event will now appear to employees in Search giving activities, and to team leaders/admins in Manage volunteering. Learn more about how employees can browse and choose a volunteering event and how to search and filter upcoming volunteering events.

Learn more