This volunteering app enables schools, parent groups, and the overall parent community to engage in all facets of the volunteering process in one secure,easy-to-use software application.
Many schools have a volunteer hours quota. This can sometimes come across as a pure compliance exercise that negatively motivates people to volutneer. No more! This app uses proven “gamification” techniques and positive reinforcement to better engage the school community. Users select “saint avatars,” accumulate points (instead of hours), and can advance to different levels of volunteerism inspired by positive messaging from the saint avatar.
There is a simple fixed monthly fee starting at $100 per month. Please review the Terms of Use for more information.
There is a support icon on all versions of the app (desktop, tablet, mobile) that is available to all users. You will find answers to many of the common questions there. If you are the designated Leader for your school, you would also have the ability to submit questions through support@connect1.io.
We are constantly looking to improve the app. To that end, updates will happen, but will not be disruptive to your school community. Any ground breaking changes will be announced on our website.
Connect1 leverages state of the art cloud technology on top of Amazon Web Services to ensure a stable and secure experience. All your personal data is governed by our Privacy Policy.
As the Leader, you will have the ability to (1) setup your school profile, including your school colors and logo (2) invite your school community, (3) see detailed reports of all volunteering activity, (4) assign roles to other community members, and (5) designate community members as being eligible or ineligible to volunteer for specified events per your school’s policy.
“Theming”refers to adding your school’s specific logo and color scheme to make the app look like an extension of your website and other school-specific sites. This enables your school to showcase its technical prowess and to market to prospective families your innovative use of mobile applications.
Make sure you have a high resolution image of your logo (in a 1:1 aspect ratio is best) and a header image (aspect ratio of 3:1 is best). Choose two school colors, a primary color and a secondary color. As soon as you select these and save, you will see the scheme of the app conform to your specific school!
There are 3 roles. Leader = owner of the app with ability of all roles. You should not assign this role to anyone else unless you are absolutely sure; Creator = someone who has an ability to create volunteer events (typically your Parent Group, Homeroom Teachers, Room Parents, Select Others); User = everyone (parents, guardians, faculty). The Leader is the only person that can assign roles to the school community members.
The Leader goes to the “Community” Page and clicks on the “Invite Users” button. You simply enter their name, email, select their role, and identify whether they have satisfied your school’s eligibility criteria.
As a school, you likely have defined criteria for whether someone can volunteer at your school. The Leader defines who in the community has satisfied this criteria. The criteria determines if a volunteer has performed the training or submitted the documentation required to be able to participate as a volunteer for specified event types.
Once you have setup your school you will see a link that points to your new Connect1 website. With this link you can work with your website webmaster to add a menu item on your landing page. Some schools like to name their app center,like the “Wildcat App Center” or “Parent Portal”. Connect that menu item to the domain provided to you.
Don’t worry! As soon as you access the app for the first time, you will be taken to your dashboard and there will be a“notification bar” that will provide you with instructions on what to do. Each time you complete a step, you will seethe next notification. If you are ever wondering whether you need to do something, click on your avatar in the top right. It will bring up your“notifications” which will include messages as needed.
Each member of a family (mother, father, guardian) will have their own access to the app. This name allows the app to connect multiple family members together to track points at both the individual and family level.
Go to your “Profile Page” and click on the “Family Details” tab. You could (1) add an extended family member or guardian that is not part of your school’s roster, and/or (2) connect your spouse to your family so that you can track points together. Simply click the “+” button and provide their name and email address. They will receive an invite, and you will see a “Pending” status underneath their name until they have accepted the invite.
The best way is to download the app from either the AppStore (Apple) or PlayStore (Android). Search for “Connect1,” download the app, open the app, select your school, and you are all set! If not, you can always bookmark the url of the site, or see if your school can add a link to the site on their primary website.
There is a primary Volunteer Board that is accessible from any page in the app. On this board, there are four tabs (icons)that allow you to filter for Mine (just those events you have already signed up for), School (just school-wide events), Class (just classroom events), and All Year (just Year-Long Positions). Each Opportunity can be clicked on to see more detail about the various roles and descriptions. Both the Volunteer Board and the individual details will show roles that have “open” positions.
After signing up for an event, you can cancel at anytime prior to the event by re-clicking on that role. The app will ask you to confirm that you want to cancel. If you confirm, the app will automatically notify the creator of the event of your cancellation.
We will certainly try not to. You will not receive “offers” or other advertising sales messages and there's no automated emails going to users other than some reminders when your scheduled event is upcoming.
Yes! You will have an option in the email to click a button to refuse receiving automated emails.
Yes! No information is stored on the public internet. No information will ever be sold or given to any third party. You are in a secure, closed school community where information is only accessible to that community.
Event Types: Class Event = events specific to a classroom, like a 3rd grade party or Kindergarten mystery reader; School Event = events that are for the entire school, like lunch room assistance or picture day; Year Long Position = positions that do not have a designated date but are needed for the entire year, like PTO positions and strategic committees.
When you select a “Classroom Event” type, another screen appears where you can enter a tag, like “2nd grade,” “Mrs. Smith’s Class,” etc. The app will save this tag and will automatically come up the next time you (or other Creators) use that tag. This will enable users to search for events specific to those tags.
Categories are used by the school to produce summary reports by each category. For example, the total number of volunteer hours spent on “Fund-Raising” events.
Similar to categories, sub-categories can be created by “Creators” in case the school wants to report on a category with more granularity. For example, you could create a sub-category tag, “5K Race”, under “Fund-raising,” in order to produce summary reports by that sub-category or to make it easier to search for events with that tag.
Instead of requiring volunteers to submit hours after the fact, the Creator assigns points when creating the event. This allows points to be allocated automatically without any need for volunteers to “do work” after their event. Points are typically associated with hours (2-hour time slot = 2 points) or can be associated with donating something (buying and bringing snacks in for party = 3 points, completing a school review on a marketing website = 2 points). If you do not want to assign any points, enter 0.
Check this box if the role requires volunteers to have completed your school’s eligibility criteria.
You can share this event via copied link or through social media. Please note that only those users with credentials to the app will be able to see the detailed information.
You can share this event via copied link or through social media. Please note that only those users with credentials to the app will be able to see the detailed information.
Creators can delete events prior to the event date and automatic email notifications will go out to anyone that has already signed up to volunteer.
On the "Community Page," the Leader selects the individual that requires a point adjustment. You simply enter an amount of the adjustment and click save. This will be automatically reflected on the users dashboard.
Click on your app center and enter the Community management app. Search for the user and then click on roles to change their role.
As the Leader, you will see reports directly on the dashboard page. There are 3 standard reports in the app: (1) Scheduled Events -- report for seeing all events that have already been scheduled, (2) Volunteers Needed - report for seeing all events where volunteers are still needed to fulfill all roles, and(3) Community Engagement - report for seeing which community participants are at which levels of participation for volunteering.
There’s a report called “Volunteers Needed” in your dashboard. This report shows a calendar and is color-coded to show which days have events, AND for those events that do not have filled roles yet, the report will show a different color. You may click on any of the days to see the details of which events and which roles are unfulfilled.
There’s a report called “Community Engagement” which breaks down the school community based on their level of volunteerism. The levels are pre-determined by the system and represent ranges of points. Through this report, you would be able to identify what percentage of your community is below a certain threshold of points and can then design communications specific to them to help motivate their participation.
The best way to reach us for support is through our support portal.
You can also reach us at anytime via email at help@connect1.io.
