Education & nonprofit
Volunteer sign-up form template
Match volunteers to shifts: where they can help, when they're free and how to reach them.
- 8 questions
- about a minute
- Welcome screen
Free forever, with unlimited responses. No credit card.
What's in this template
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What's your name?
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What's your email address?
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03 Phone number
A number for shift reminders?
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Where would you like to help?
Pick any, with “Other”
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When are you usually free?
Pick any
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06 Date
When could you start?
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07 Long text
Anything you've done before that might help?
No experience needed — we'll train you either way.
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Last thing
I'm 18 or over, and happy to be contacted about shifts.
Why these questions
A volunteer sign-up form should match people to shifts, not just collect names. This template asks the two questions that do the matching, where and when, and keeps the rest light, so signing up takes about two minutes.
Name and email come first, then an optional phone number for shift reminders. Saying what it's for makes people more willing to give it.
Where would you like to help? is pick-any: packing food parcels, deliveries, the kitchen, welcoming visitors, admin and phones, or fundraising, with "Other" for skills you didn't think to list. When are you usually free? is pick-any too, across weekday mornings, afternoons and evenings and the weekend. Together they turn a list of names into a rota.
When could you start? is optional, and so is anything you've done before that might help?, which carries a line saying no experience is needed. That line matters: people who've never volunteered are the ones most likely to stop at a question about experience.
A required consent checkbox confirms they're 18 or over and happy to be contacted about shifts, and records exactly what they agreed to.
To make it yours: rename the roles to your own, add a photo of your volunteers in design, and turn on notifications so your volunteer coordinator hears about each sign-up. If you need more detail from some roles, add logic so only drivers are asked about a licence.
Make it yours
- Welcome screen Opens with a title, a line of context and how long it takes.
- Design Your colours, font and corners, and a picture or video on any screen.
- Encryption Turn it on and personal answers are encrypted at rest.
- Email notifications Teammates hear about each response as it's completed.
- Webhooks Send every response to your own systems, signed.
- Embedding Put it on your site inline, as a popup or as a slider.
Questions people ask
Can I ask different questions for different roles?
Yes. Add the extra questions, then use logic rules on the roles question to skip them for people who didn't pick that role.
How do I see who's free for a particular shift?
Export the responses to CSV. Availability is one column with every choice listed, so you can filter it in a spreadsheet. On Premium, Insights also counts each choice.
Is it free for charities?
Yes. hootform's free plan has unlimited forms and responses, which covers most volunteer programmes, however large.
Can volunteers sign up for specific dates?
Replace the availability question with a list of dates, or add a date question. For a rota of fixed shifts, a pick-any list of shifts works best.
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Also in: Forms · For nonprofits