Volunteer Information

Be a helpful volunteer / Use the App

While your volunteering is greatly appreciated, you can also help - your agencies by “checking in” each time you volunteer. This allows them to track your hours, which, among other things, may be a great help in getting grants. The easiest way to check in, as well as to see a calendar of your volunteering or search needs, is to use the Causer App (another article about Causer App). You can also check in by visiting the web page or using a - check-in kiosk, if provided.

New users

This page has some hints for using the volunteer site as a volunteer. While you can view and search volunteering opportunities (aka “needs”) and events without having an account, you will need an account to do things like respond to (sign up for) needs (volunteering opportunities), to track your volunteering hours.

When you sign up for an account, you ONLY have to enter the required fields in Step 1 (first and last name, email address, and password). There are five more steps that provide more information that allows your experience to be more personalized.

Click here to get an introduction to your dashboard for volunteering in Tioga County.

Notifications

Sites vary in whether you sign up for notifications or are automatically enrolled to receive notifications. This site signs you up by default for agencies you have fanned. Based upon feedback from volunteers, we have disabled notification for each added need, but weekly updates are sent out for needs that have been added to agencies you have fanned that need help with interests that you have defined. This is why it is important to identify your interests (what you can help with) by managing your profile.

Help

There is extensive help provided by Galaxy Digital, the site creator. To access, click on the “HELP” button in the upper right corner of the screen. This will bring up the “Knowledge Base” which you can search for help on many topics. When you search for help, note that the results will often indicate that the help link is targeted at “Volunteers”, “Agency Managers”, or “Site Managers.” Unless you ARE an agency manager seeking help, you will want to make sure to select help targeted at Volunteers. When you pull up a help page, you will find that the first line in the white area will always provide a Heads Up! Identifying the targeted audience.

Galaxy Digital has reconfigured their help, so it will try to route you appropriately. However, you can also go directly to a "table of contents" for common help needs by usage type by clicking on these links for volunteers and agency managers.

Information overload

As we start rolling out the site for broader use, we hope more agencies come on board and list many volunteering needs and/or events. While you can always look at all of the needs and events, we hope that there will be more than you want to scroll through manually. Needs and events can both be displayed in a grid, a list, or a calendar, and they c an all be filtered. If it is not obvious how to do this, then please read the help on how to find volunteer needs.

Clearances, training, and other constraints

Agencies will have different training and volunteer approval processes. In some instances, you may be required to have clearances in order to work with children. We do not house, approve, or otherwise vet you as a volunteer for the different county agencies. You will have to coordinate with each agency for any requirements they may have. If you need clearances, more information can be obtained here.

You do have the option to indicate whether or not you have clearances. While you will still have to provide these to any agency that requires them, opting to identify whether you have them (or not) just filters the volunteering needs (opportunities) you will be able to see. While you will never see private needs unless you have already been approved for that agency, you also will not see needs that require clearances if you have not indicated that you have clearances. Similarly, you will not see needs (volunteering opportunities) that require you to be an adult, unless you have indicated that you are 18+.