Volunteer Shifts, Roles and Waitlist Offers

A Saturday food pantry does not need “20 volunteers”. It needs six packers in the morning, four drivers in the afternoon, and a driver who is old enough to drive the van. Muin volunteer events now plan for that directly.

Shifts and roles

Each volunteer event has a Staffing tab. Shifts are the rows (when) and roles are the columns (what the person does). Every shift and role pair has its own number of spots and its own waitlist.

• A volunteer picks a shift, and a role when the shift has more than one.
• A person can hold more than one shift on the same day as long as the times do not overlap.
• A simple event can skip all of this and keep one set of spots for the whole event.
• You can set a minimum for a shift and role. If it is still short 48 hours before the shift, you get an alert.

One role list for the organization

Roles live in Settings > Nonprofit > Volunteer roles. A role can carry a minimum age and required certifications. Age is checked against the shift date, and a certification must be valid on that date. A volunteer who does not qualify is told why and which roles they can pick instead.

Group holds

You can hold spots in one shift and role for a named group, such as a youth group or a company team, until a release date. Members of that group use the held spots. When the hold releases, any unused spots go to that role’s waitlist first, then to the public.

Waitlist offers instead of surprise sign-ups

When a spot opens, Muin offers it to the next person on that waitlist instead of signing them up without asking.

• The volunteer gets an email and an in-app notice with an accept-by time, and accepts or declines from their volunteer portal.
• The offer window is 24 hours by default and can be changed in Settings > Nonprofit > Volunteers. Every offer closes 2 hours before the shift starts.
• If a spot opens less than 2 hours before the shift, no offer goes out. You get an alert so you can call someone.
• If an offer runs out, the volunteer stays on the waitlist at the back of the queue and the spot goes to the next person.

Changes after sign-up

From the volunteer portal, a volunteer can move to another shift or role on the same date. If the new one is full, they keep their current spot and join its waitlist. Coordinators can move people between shifts, cut spots, or remove a shift or role. Before a removal, Muin names the people in it so you can move them first; anyone moved or cancelled gets an email. Removing an event’s only shift turns it back into one set of spots for the whole event, and everyone in it stays signed up.

Where to read more

The full guide is in Volunteer Management, and the volunteer side is in Volunteer Portal.