Create custom questionnaires to prescreen volunteers with Question Manager

Streamline your recruitment process by requesting more information from prospective volunteers right off the bat with Custom Questions, available to all VolunteerMatch Members!

Question Manager allows you to create custom questions to ask prospective volunteers when they initially express interest in your volunteer opportunity. The questions will appear on the connection form (see example below) when a volunteer clicks the "I want to help!" button on one of your opportunities. 

NOTE: Organizations must not ask questions that will lead to volunteers submitting sensitive personal information, namely information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation."

By automatically collecting relevant information, you can quickly and easily prescreen your volunteers to ensure they're the right fit for the position! 

With Question Manager, you can: 

• Create new custom questions
• Attach your questions to your opportunities
• Manage your existing questions
• Customize the volunteer questionnaire for a specific opportunity

How to create new custom questions: 

Follow the steps below to set up a new custom question and start getting to know your prospective volunteers: 

1. Log into VolunteerMatch.org to access your organization's dashboard
2. Select Question Manager under Manage Opportunities in the left-hand navigation menu
   
3. Choose from the Question Library scroll down the page to click +Create a Custom Question
   
   
4. Select your question type from the following options:
   
   • Dropdown — A great way to ask for a volunteer's shift choice, location, t-shirt size, etc. Dropdowns are preferred over Multiple Choice questions when there's a large set of options to choose from (e.g., selecting a state). 
   • Multiple Choice (Choose one) — Excellent for "Yes or No" questions, like "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?", or collecting more information about their volunteer preferences and availability. 
   • Checkboxes (Choose all that apply) — Perfect for learning more about a volunteer's availability preferences, skill sets, languages, and much more! 
   • Short Answer (100 characters max) — Choose this option for collecting basic information that doesn't require a long response, like phone numbers, birthdates, etc.    
   • Long Answer — An excellent and easy way to learn if a prospective volunteer is the right person for the role. We recommend asking questions, like "Why are you interested in this position?" or "Please describe any experience you have in a similar role."
     
5. Enter your question and answer choices (if applicable)
   
6. Click Save

How to attach your questions to your opportunities: 

Once you've created a custom question, you can quickly add it to your opportunities by following the steps below: 

1. Check the box in the left-hand column of the question you want to add to one or more opportunities
   
2. Select View and Link Opportunities* at the top of the page, then click the opportunities you'd like to attach to the selected question from the drop-down or choose All Opportunities
   
   *Please note that only Active and Draft opportunities will appear in the drop-down!
3. Click Save to keep your changes

The update should take effect immediately. The next time a volunteer connects to your opportunity, they'll be asked to answer your question! Their answers will be available to the Opportunity Contact in the connection notification email and can be found in your View All Connections page. 

You can add up to 5 questions to an opportunity. By default, questions are optional. If you'd like to require a question, you can do so by customizing an opportunity's volunteer questionnaire. 

How to manage your existing questions: 

Managing your existing questions is easy! 

If you'd like to make changes to an existing question, simply click the Edit link in the Action column of your Question Manager. From here, you can update the question text and answer options as well as the type of question. 

If you'd like to remove a question, simply click the Delete link.

How to customize the volunteer questionnaire for a specific opportunity: 

We understand that different positions are looking for different types of volunteers. While you might want to ask all prospective volunteers phone numbers, you won't need to ask everyone if they're over 18 or what types of coding languages they're familiar with. 

While you can attach a question to one or more opportunities in Question Manager, you can also customize a specific opportunity's volunteer questionnaire. When you do so, you can determine the order of the questions and make questions required. 

N.B., if you attach a question to an opportunity via Question Manager, it will NOT be required. 

Just follow the steps below: 

1. Select the pencil icon to the right of an opportunity to access the Opportunity Details page
   
2. Scroll down to the Volunteer Questionnaire section under the Recruitment tab
3. Click Edit
   
   
4. If you've already attached up to 5 questions, mark if you'd like to require any of those questions by checking the corresponding box
5. If you haven't yet attached any questions, select up to 5 questions and indicate whether or not they should be required
6. Click Next
   
   
7. Optional: Drag your questions to reorder them 
   
8. Click Save

And that's all it takes to save time with Question Manager!