Volunteer availability sounds simple until you try to record it. One docent can do Tuesday mornings. Another can do “most Saturdays, but not in August.” A retired teacher is free any weekday during the school year and not at all in summer. A college student can only commit to the first weekend of each month. Altru gives you a place to store availability on the volunteer record, but how much of that nuance it can hold is the real question.
Below is how availability works in Altru’s volunteer area in general terms, where it tends to fall short, and the workarounds that keep scheduling usable.
Where availability lives
In Altru, a constituent becomes a volunteer when you add volunteer information to their record. Availability is part of that volunteer information, alongside things like volunteer type, skills or interests, and the jobs they’re assigned to. Each availability entry generally describes a recurring window: a day of the week, a start and end time, and optionally the date range it applies to.
The fields and options differ slightly between Altru releases and depend on how your organization set up volunteer management, so open a test volunteer record in your sandbox (or a record you can safely edit) and look at exactly what the availability form offers before you train anyone on it. If something you need isn’t there, check with Blackbaud support or the Altru documentation rather than assuming a hidden setting exists.
Entering availability that actually reflects the person
The basic approach is one entry per recurring window. A few habits make the data far more useful later:
- Use separate entries for separate windows. “Tuesday 9–12” and “Thursday 1–4” should be two entries, not one entry with a note. Queries and scheduling views can only work with what’s in the structured fields.
- Use date ranges for seasonal patterns. If someone is available weekdays September through May, enter it with those start and end dates. When summer comes, the entry stops applying instead of quietly misleading the scheduler.
- Record actual hours, not “mornings.” Your shifts have real start times. If a volunteer’s window ends at 11:30 and your shift runs to noon, you want to see that conflict before you assign them.
- Don’t record availability you would never schedule. If the person says “any time,” ask which shifts they’d actually like. “Any time” tends to mean “please don’t call me at 7 a.m. on Sunday.”
Patterns that don’t fit neatly
This is where most coordinators get frustrated. Weekly recurring windows cover a lot of volunteers, but not all of them. Common cases that are awkward to express as structured availability:
- “First and third Saturday of the month”
- “Every other week”
- “On call for special events only”
- “Available, but not on holiday weekends”
- “Mornings, except when my grandkids visit”
Whether your version of Altru can represent a monthly or alternating pattern directly isn’t something to guess at. Test it. If it can’t, here are the workarounds that hold up best:
Enter the closest weekly pattern and flag the exception
Record “Saturday 10–2” so the volunteer shows up when you look for Saturday coverage, then add a short, consistent note or attribute explaining the limit (“1st and 3rd Saturdays only”). The scheduler sees them as a candidate and reads the caveat before assigning.
Use constituent attributes for categories
For things like “event on-call,” “summer only,” or “school groups only,” a constituent attribute with a fixed list of values is better than free-text notes. Attributes can be filtered in queries, so you can pull “all on-call event volunteers” in seconds. Agree on the list of values before anyone starts entering them, or you’ll end up with five spellings of the same thing.
Use date ranges for blackout periods
If someone is unavailable for a known stretch, such as a two-month trip, end their availability entry before it and start a new one after. That’s cleaner than a note that someone has to remember to read.
Using availability when you schedule
Availability only pays off if you look at it when filling shifts. Build a volunteer query that returns name, contact information, availability day and time, the relevant attributes, and their job or interest assignments. Save a version filtered by day of week so a coordinator can open “Saturday availability” and see the candidate list immediately.
If your team schedules through job occurrences in Altru, compare the occurrence times against availability before assigning. Some coordinators keep the query exported to a spreadsheet during busy recruiting periods simply because it’s faster to sort and scan; if you do this, treat Altru as the place you update and the spreadsheet as a throwaway view.
Keeping it current
Availability goes stale faster than almost any other volunteer data. Two simple routines help:
- Ask twice a year. Before your spring and fall schedules, send volunteers a short check-in asking them to confirm or update their availability. Update records as answers come in.
- Close out old entries instead of deleting them. Ending an entry with a date keeps the history (useful when someone says “I used to do Wednesdays”) while keeping current scheduling clean.
Quick answers
Can a volunteer have more than one availability window?
Yes, and they should. Enter each recurring window as its own entry rather than combining them in one.
Can volunteers update their own availability online?
That depends on what your organization has set up for volunteer self-service, if anything. Confirm with whoever manages your Altru web presence or with Blackbaud support before promising it to volunteers.
What if availability doesn’t match any pattern Altru offers?
Record the nearest weekly window so the person appears in searches, and capture the exception in a consistent attribute or note so it’s visible at scheduling time.
