Everything you need to set up and run VolunteerPress. New here? Work through Getting started in order — it takes you from an empty site to a working volunteer program in under an hour.
Getting started
- Install and activate — upload the plugin, activate it, and know where updates come from.
- Your first opportunity — create an opportunity, add two shifts, and see the result on your site.
- Your first signup — put signup on a public page and follow one signup end to end, from form to confirmation email to admin record.
- Recommended setup — three checks that keep the calendar accurate and your email out of spam.
Core concepts
- Opportunities, shifts, and signups — the three pieces every VolunteerPress site is built from, and how they fit together.
- How email works — every email VolunteerPress sends, when it sends it, and the settings that control it.
Guides
- Managing opportunities and shifts — edit opportunities, build recurring series, and adjust capacity.
- Managing signups — see who’s coming, and confirm, cancel, or move signups.
- The calendar — put a browsable calendar of opportunities on any page.
- Emailing volunteers — message one shift’s roster, one opportunity’s volunteers, or everyone.
- Custom signup fields — ask volunteers extra questions on the signup form.
- Waitlists — what happens when a shift fills up, and how promotion works.
- Styling and appearance — how VolunteerPress adopts your theme, and what you can adjust.
- Your data and privacy — where volunteer data lives, exports, backups, and moving your site.
Troubleshooting
- Reminder emails are late or missing — why scheduled email waits for site visits, and the request to your host that fixes it.
- Emails go to spam or never arrive — the free SMTP-plugin fix, step by step.
- The calendar highlights the wrong day — the two-minute timezone fix in Settings → General.
- Changes don’t show on your site — stale shift lists, stale spot counts, and failing signup forms: clear the cache and exclude the signup pages.
If a question isn’t covered here, see Support.