A User Group is a way to group volunteers and their hours. United Ways typically use User Groups for their corporate partners with employee volunteer programs. But you can also form user groups for students (such as clubs or service-learning courses), faith-based groups, affinity groups, and more!
Adding User Group Members
There are four ways to add users to a User Group:
You (the Site Manager) can add users one-at-a-time, using the volunteer’s email address.
You can specify an “Allowed Domain” when setting up the User Group:
Anyone who joins your site using this email domain will be automatically added to the User Group. For example, let’s say you have created a User Group for Bank of Connect employees. You can create an allowed domain(s) just for this company. The email domain is the sequence that appears after the @ symbol:
jenniferlopez@bankofconnect.com
In this case, any user that joins with their @bankofconnect.com email is automatically added to the User Group!
Invite users to join using the User Group’s unique Join Link:
You can copy this link into an email to your point of contact, who can distribute to other group members. When an individual clicks on this link, they are automatically added to the group. If this individual is not yet registered with your site, they will be prompted to do so.
You can add users in bulk (manually) to a user group. Check out this video to learn how!
Check out this article for more on how to add and remove users.
Adding Private Needs to User Groups
United Ways like yours have worked hard to bolster partnerships with other organizations and companies in your community. And you may want to provide corporate partners, or other groups, with some volunteer opportunities just for them--like a park renovation day just for your local Bank of Connect employees. Simply create and assign Private Needs for specific User Groups. Members of these User Groups will be able to view and respond to any private needs assigned to them in their User Group tab:
There are two ways you can assign a Private Need to a User Group. Check out this article for easy-to-follow steps.
The User Group Resume
One of the major benefits of creating user groups is that you can access data specific for these users, even if they volunteer for different needs on your site. This is especially beneficial for your corporate partners who want to demonstrate their social responsibility to customers or their board. The User Group Resume is a report available to all members of the User Group. Volunteers who belong to a User Group can view their Resume in their profile area:
In this area, they can view needs assigned to them, or select “View Resume,” which leads to a customizable page displaying data unique to the selected User Group, including total hours contributed by members, total impact value, and more! The Resume can also be exported to a PDF, ready to share!
The User Group data “snapshot” and will appear on each member’s profile. It’s a quick, powerful overview to share with community members and board members to demonstrate impact.
For more on the User Group Resume, check out this article.