Approving Needs

Some organizations require needs to be reviewed and approved before they are published to volunteers. This approval step ensures quality, consistency, and privacy compliance before a need goes out to your volunteer base. This guide explains when approval is required, who can approve, and how to process the approval queue.

When Approval Is Required

Need approval is an organization-level setting. When enabled, every need created by a case worker goes into a Pending Approval state instead of being published immediately. The need remains invisible to volunteers until a coordinator or admin approves it.

Your organization may choose to enable approval for several reasons:

  • Ensuring need descriptions protect client privacy
  • Maintaining consistent quality and formatting
  • Reviewing urgency levels before notifications go out
  • Allowing coordinators to verify that needs are appropriate for their areas

If your organization does not use need approval, needs are published as soon as the case worker clicks Publish.

The Pending Approval Queue

When approval is enabled, pending needs appear in the approval queue. You can access this queue from:

  • The coordinator dashboard -- Pending approvals appear as a highlighted metric with a direct link.
  • The needs list -- Filter by the "Pending Approval" status to see all needs awaiting review.
  • Notifications -- You may receive a notification when a new need is submitted for approval.

The queue shows the need title, creator, area, category, urgency, and submission date.

Reviewing a Need Before Publishing

Click on a pending need to open its detail view. Review the following before approving:

  • Title -- Is it clear, specific, and compelling? Will a volunteer understand what is needed from the title alone?
  • Description -- Does it include enough detail for a volunteer to act? Does it protect client privacy (no names, addresses, or identifying information)?
  • Area and category -- Are they correct for this need?
  • Urgency -- Is the urgency level appropriate? Is a critical need truly critical?
  • Images and links -- Are they relevant and appropriate?
  • Due date and quantities -- Are they realistic?

Approving or Sending Back for Revision

After reviewing, you have two options:

Approve

Click Approve to publish the need. Once approved, the need becomes visible to volunteers and notifications are sent based on the urgency level and volunteer subscription settings. The case worker is notified that their need has been approved and published.

Send Back for Revision

If the need has issues -- unclear description, missing details, privacy concerns, or incorrect categorization -- send it back to the case worker with a note explaining what needs to change. The case worker will receive a notification with your feedback and can edit and resubmit the need.

Common reasons to send a need back:

  • Title is too vague ("Help needed" instead of "Family of 3 needs diapers, sizes 3 and 5")
  • Description includes client identifying information
  • Wrong area or category selected
  • Urgency level seems too high or too low for the situation

Who Can Approve Needs

Approval permissions are role-based:

  • Coordinators can approve needs in the areas they are assigned to. A coordinator managing "North County" can approve needs in that area but not in areas they do not manage.
  • Organization Admins and Executive Admins can approve needs in any area across the organization.

If a need is in an area without an assigned coordinator, an organization admin will need to approve it.

Tips

  • Process the approval queue daily. Every hour a need waits for approval is an hour it could have been in front of volunteers. Fast approvals lead to faster fulfillment.
  • Give constructive feedback when sending needs back. Instead of just rejecting, explain what to fix. This helps case workers improve over time and reduces future rejections.
  • Use approval as a coaching tool, not a bottleneck. The goal is to help case workers write better needs, not to slow down the process. If a case worker consistently submits quality needs, consider discussing whether approval is still needed for your organization.
  • Watch for privacy issues. The most important thing to check is that need descriptions do not contain client names, addresses, or other identifying information.