Compose volunteer outreach, save drafts, and schedule messages

For the newer Volunteer Management interface. Access and available actions depend on your volunteer or administrator role.

How to use

In the newer volunteer portal, open People, select the intended constituents, and choose Email selected when available. For saved work, use Outreach → Outbox; use Outreach → Templates for the template library. There is no separate Compose item in this sidebar. Choose authorized recipients or segments, select an available template, compose the message, and preview recipient-specific merge fields. Save a draft, send, or schedule through the offered controls. Use Outbox to review batches and individual recipient status.

The newer portal exposes draft editing/deletion, template creation/duplication, attachments/media uploads, scheduled-send update/cancel, and an unschedule action. Review the resulting state before assuming a schedule is canceled.

Rules and troubleshooting

Email permission and confidentiality acceptance can block sending even when you can sign in. Scheduling interprets the selected wall-clock time in the supplied time zone, falling back to school configuration when needed. Confirm the displayed zone and time.

Check the scheduling controls in Volunteer Management; its timing rules differ from ordinary Outreach scheduling. A queued batch is not proof every recipient received the email; inspect recipient-level outcomes.

Insert a campaign, Giving Form or event link

The email-toolbar link picker is available for all VM2 schools as of November 3, 2026. In the volunteer portal → People, select the constituents and choose Email selected to open the composer. Use the email toolbar's link picker, choose the campaign, Giving Form or event, select the available destination and insert the link. For a campaign's personal advocate link, choose Advocacy rather than the general campaign link. Review recipients and send using the composer's controls.

Volunteers still need email access through their configured volunteer role and any required confidentiality acceptance. The picker does not bypass recipient access or make a draft/unavailable campaign shareable.

Which volunteer receives advocacy credit?

The link identifies the sending volunteer when the audience is constituents. In an administrator email to volunteers, it identifies each recipient volunteer, not one shared administrator advocate. A Pending volunteer without a linked GiveCampus account cannot receive a personal attributed link in that send: the fallback is the plain campaign page with no advocate credit. Have the volunteer link their account first when individual attribution is required.

The editor may contain an $Advocate_URL[campaign ID]$ placeholder. The send resolves it to the appropriate volunteer's link. A preview may substitute a general campaign URL, so preview alone does not prove personalized attribution. Do not replace the placeholder with one copied person's link for everyone.

For campaigns on the newer advocacy experience, the sending volunteer is enrolled for campaign advocacy; display on advocate lists/leaderboards can depend on tracked activity. An administrator-to-volunteer send does not immediately enroll every recipient merely by sending the email; the recipient's link activity handles enrollment. Campaigns on the older advocacy experience can still credit gifts from an existing advocate link but do not list the volunteer as a campaign advocate through this flow. The current picker offers Advocacy for campaigns on the newer experience; a missing Advocacy option on an older campaign is not a missing VM email permission.

Volunteer advocate-click and dollars-raised reporting inside VM is not yet available. Do not promise an in-VM advocacy analytics screen. These are VM email instructions, not the GC Outreach autofill CSV workflow.