Leading your ministry · 3 min read
Find people and invite volunteers
Use the directory, follow up on invitations, and review a person’s teams and serving responsibilities.
For leaders
These steps use the Beacon website unless the iPhone app is mentioned.
In this guide
Start in People
Choose the organization you're working with, then open People. The directory helps you find someone and review their teams and serving commitments. The people and actions you can see depend on your access.
Search for the person, or use filters for a group, ministry area, qualification, or capacity. If a person seems to be missing, clear the filters. You can also turn on Include inactive when looking for a previous member.
Open their entry before making a change. Someone may serve on more than one team, and their next assignment may be outside the team you usually coordinate.
Send a volunteer invitation
- Choose Invite volunteer, if available to your account.
- Enter the volunteer's email address.
- Choose a group if the invitation should include one, or leave it as Organization only.
- Choose Send invitation and check the result.
Someone who already uses Beacon can sign in and accept with their existing account. They don't need another password just to join your organization.
The invitation gives them a way to join. Activity assignments are handled separately after they accept and appear in People. A volunteer invitation also doesn't grant administrator access.
Check invitations that need follow-up
Look at Invitations needing follow-up for pending and expired invitations. Each entry shows its status and delivery information, with an action to retry delivery or replace an expired link as appropriate.
Check the email address with the person before sending another invitation. If you've invited the wrong person, revoke the active invitation. If an invitation is still pending, don't treat the person as having joined or accepted a serving role.
Review qualifications and membership changes
The Qualifications and Availability sections help you look into scheduling problems. For example, you can filter for a qualification that expires within 30 days and follow up before the next serving date.
When changing a volunteer's active membership, read the impact review. It lists future assignments, team memberships, and what the action changes. Work through those responsibilities before confirming; a membership change can affect more than the directory entry you're looking at.
Need a little more help?
Contact the team and tell us where you got stuck.