Support Articles

Building your application is another complex piece for how you lead missions trips.  Because of the powerful tools available on ServiceReef for handling applications we are going to break this introduction into two part - General Application Settings & Application Builder.   Some things to consider before we get started: Do you require people to apply for your opportunities or just auto-enroll? Do you take roll for who attends your opportunities? Do you have fees associated with applying for an opportunity? Do you have application questions relevant just to your organization, just to an opportunity, or both?    Approval ServiceReef defaults to assume you will require for applicants to apply for an event and then enter an approval process.  We use the term apply for signing up for any event, regardless if the event has unique questions or a simple click to sign up.  If you select the approval process option for this first question then the button on the opportunity page will read “Apply” while if you select the option for auto-enroll the button on the opportunity page will read “Sign Up”.     Our experience shows that more local serving events will select the auto-enroll feature while most every global missions trip will select the approval process.     Roll Will you take roll and record attendance for this opportunity?  Yes or No.  Why do we ask this question?  Simple… many schools require a certain amount of service hours and it’s important that we track who has attended each opportunity.  You may be hosting an opportunity and may not necessarily care of roll is taken but it certainly could matter to those who are serving with your organization.  This really is a matter of who your participants are and if this is needed.  Obviously, if you are a school then you’ll probably always use this function.     The event admin has the ability to note (during or after the event) who attended so there is a tracking of this attendance on ServiceReef.  Each organization is responsible to share with other organization who has served with them… if they take roll.   Application Fee Do you require an application fee to apply for your opportunities?  Application fees serve as a simple means to determine how serious someone is to apply for one of your opportunities. Here are some helpful things to know about the application fee: The application fee is in addition to the trip cost that you set on the Financial page of your opportunity.   The application fee will be processed at the time of application for opportunities that have auto-enroll or it will be processed at the time of acceptance for opportunities that require approval.   If an application fee is required the applicant will be required to fill out financial information in their application process (regardless of when the transaction will be processed).     Application Settings Before you start building specific opportunity application question there are a few more specifics required.  Here’s what you’ll need to know: Does the user need to fill out an application?  If you select Yes then you’ll be able to add/edit specific opportunity questions.  If you select No then you don’t need to worry about creating questions . Do you want to use the Master Application LINK HERE?  Remember you have two applications you can manage - the Master Application and the Opportunity Application.  Here you are selecting if you require applicants to complete the Master Application in addition to any Opportunity questions.  The user experience will guide through one series of questions regardless if you require both question sets or only one - it’s seamless for the applicant. Do you allow applicants to apply elsewhere?  This is for instances where you might have a paper application or some other means of managing applications.  Not many organizations use this.

Regardless if you’re the financial guru or simply have to wade through managing finances for an opportunity, ServiceReef makes it simple for you.  You have two major places in an event to manage various financial aspects, here on the Financial tab and also on the Application tab.  We will unpack the Financial tab here. Fundraising for Participants Fundraising Required? - Here you note if the participants are required to raise funds for an opportunity.  If you select Yes then you’ll need to enter the full amount they are to raise for their event.  This amount does not include any application fees.  You also can select a date when these funds are due.  If you select No then you will have no other data fields to enter.  An example of an event where you don’t require fund raising might be to serve at a weekend soup kitchen opportunity.   Allow Donations? - Here you select if this opportunity will allow for other people to provide support/fundraising for participants or if the participant is required to pay for the event on their own.  Most missions trips will select Yes and allow for donors to help support a specific participant.   Deposits & Milestones We often want to specific fundraising milestones along the way for our participants.  This helps them set goals and keep on track for where they should be by different points in time.  It also keeps a good accountability for your participants on fundraising.   Examples of milestones might be when the initial deposit is due, date for 50% of funds to be raised by, or date when airfare funds are due. NOTE: These milestones simply help as a means to guide the participant - the system does not relate actual milestones with fundraising to date as there are too many complications to how you might enter/build your milestones.   Donations to Organization Many organizations will allow for general donations to the opportunity - above and beyond donations to each individual participant.   You can select if you will allow general donations and what that donation target amount might be.   This fundraising goal will be posted on your opportunity public page.   Donation Deadline Do you have a date where you will no longer accept donations for this opportunity?  This is where you would set that.  Here’s an example… you have an opportunity for a high school trip to Kenya and you want the opportunity for fundraising to stop two weeks prior to the event send off… this is where you set that.   Why would you set a date for this?  Many organizations set dates for a donation deadline to require the trip participant to fulfill the remaining balance on their own in order to manage participants who may never pay their full amount.  

ServiceReef shouldn’t be your only vehicle for publishing your opportunities, you have way too many people who need to hear about what you’re doing.  Let’s build a list for other ways you can build awareness in your community: Facebook Twitter Instagram Organization Website Awareness Weekends Printed Materials Previous Participants Announcement Boards Announcement Video Screens

Let’s explore how you can present your opportunity for people to learn more and get a good feel for what this is all about.  Let’s review through your options to help promote your opportunity. Event Website Sometimes an organization has a specific website for an opportunity, if so, place that URL here.  You already have the link back to your main organization page so don’t worry about loading anything here if you don’t have a specific event website. Event Twitter Handle What’s your event Twitter handle?  This helps people post to Twitter and Instagram.   Event Facebook Page Sometimes you’ll also create a Facebook page to help build awareness of your opportunity.  Paste that Facebook page URL here.  Welcome Video  Here you can paste a YouTube or Vimeo video link if you have a specific video about this trip.  This is a great place to help quickly snapshot what this opportunity is all about.  If you don’t have a promo video consider loading a highlights video from a previous opportunity.   Photos Photos are always excellent to help capture the opportunity and help people see themselves in the place of serving there as well.  We recommend somewhere around 12-20 photos per opportunity.  

Many opportunities require preparation meetings, retreats, or even phone meetings for team preparation.  ServiceReef makes this simple to manage so that you can effectively prepare your team for this upcoming opportunity.   To get started click on the “Add Meeting” button where you will be prompted to this next page asking for the following information: Name - What is the name of your meeting?  Think about if it’s a retreat, a packing meeting, a conference call and name it something that describes what the meeting actually is. Description - Here you can post any additional information, the purpose of the meeting, and call in information for conference calls.   Location - Is this meeting happening at a physical location or virtual?  Here you can post an address, directions, or whatever information is needed to know where this meeting will occur.   Start/End Date/Time - Here you set the parameters of the meetings schedule  Required - Is this meeting required for your participants to attend?   Participants will be notified reminders of these upcoming meetings as well as have these listed in their update emails.  These are also visible on the main opportunity page for each event.  

Every opportunity is unique so we’ve built the requirements to match the uniqueness of how you run opportunities and how these all unique form each other.  These are open fields to give you maximum flexibility.  We’ll help think through a few ideas with you to get you started. Maximum Spots Available How many spaces are you looking to fill for this opportunity?  Set a number here and ServiceReef will automatically shut down opportunity registration at the point of filling all of these spaces.  NOTE: If the opportunity requires an application the opportunity will show spaces available until the maximum number of applications have been accepted for the opportunity.   Restrictions Do you have any restrictions for those people applying/attending this opportunity.  Consider things like age, physical ability, etc.   Prerequisites  Do participants have to have completed certain prerequisites in order to attend this opportunity?  This might be a training you require or perhaps you require serving locally before serving globally.   Responsibilities  What are the expectations for those who will be attending this opportunity?  List as much as you need to here - this is where you can capture the work people will be doing and any other expectations that need to be noted. Next Steps - Preparation Many times we have additional steps for participants once they’ve applied/been accepted for one of our opportunities.  Here you can list items such as apply for a Passport, talk with your family, fundraising, or any other preparation steps you might have.   Save Changes Don’t forget to save changes every time you update your opportunity information.  

This is our starting point for setting up an event so we have a lot of detail questions to answer.  Let’s unpack these one at a time: Name What you going to name your opportunity?  You should consider a name that’s simple to understand and comprehend.  Many of our organization will also place some general date context in the title, something like GhanaFall2016.  Also consider if this is an opportunity to a restricted access country - you may not want to use the actual name of the country in the title.  Some organizations will use symbols to replace certain letters.  We will cover opportunity security in other sections of the Knowledge Base. Start Date / End Date Each opportunity has a unique start date/time and end date/time.  ServiceReef can manage a simple 2-hour opportunity at a local soup kitchen all the way to some six month long internship.  These date ranges will be how ServiceReef orders your events in your opportunity directory (by event start date).   Time Zone Be sure to note the time zone of your opportunity as you may have participants coming from various places around the United States or the world.  ServiceReef simply manages the user’s experience based on their location.   Available On This is asking when you would like for this opportunity to be published to your public opportunity listing page.  This allows you to stack upcoming opportunities into your system without the public being aware of them until the date you select.  You can always change this later if you needed to push this event’s launch back (or forward).  The time zone comes in helpful here as the opportunity will go live in accordance to the time zone noted above.   NOTE: If you don’t set an Available On date the opportunity will go live upon your publishing of the opportunity.   Registration Deadline Most organizations prefer to set an end date for opportunities in order to finalize flight reservations, prepare the team, and other reasons.  You can choose if you would like to set a registration deadline or leave blank to allow participants to sign up until the day/time of the opportunity. NOTE: You do have the ability to restrict the quantity of people on each of your opportunities - we’ll cover that in the Requirements area of the Knowledge Base. Description Tell us about your opportunity. You can share the purpose, the vision, the goal, the history, etc.  This is someone’s first introduction to your opportunity to make it conversational and description… invite them into the amazing work that’s happening.   Service Categories  You can select up to three service categories for each of your opportunities.  These categories allow for ServiceReef to make better recommendations to those in your community and they allow for you to gain meaningful insights on various interests of those who serve with you.   You’ll notice that if you select Medical & Healthcare that an entire new directory populates on the page.  ServiceReef has a partnership with MedicalMissions.com and here’s how it works… for each of the areas you select will allow for this opportunity to populate on MedicalMissions.com for each of these Neighborhoods.   Privacy Level How private would you like to make this opportunity?  You have several options and we default to a public opportunity.  Let’s explore these a little more: Public - These opportunities are visible to everyone.  They will populate on your master list of events and even show up on other recommendation pages for other organizations and other individuals. Organization Only - These opportunities are visible to those viewing your organization page only.   Secure - These opportunities will not show up on any list.  They each create a unique URL that must be given to each team member to apply for the event.  These events also will not show event details (other than dates) to anyone who has not applied AND been accepted.   Primary Contact This information is how someone will reach out to you if they have questions.  You can have different contact information for each of your opportunities - sometimes this is someone at your organization while other times it might be your team leader.  You can select who this point of contact is and you can always change this later.  This person’s information will populate on the opportunity page.   Opportunity Location Don’t forget to tell people where this opportunity is occurring.  We don’t make this mandatory in order to allow for security specifications but you can enter this data to help people know where they are going.  We highly recommend you at least note the country in order to generate meaningful reports for your participants and your donors.   Save Changes Don’t forget to save changes every time you update your opportunity information.    

ServiceReef is built to handle many complexities of your organization and how you manage your service opportunities.  We will walk through every detail of these complexities through the ServiceReef Knowledge Base… but let’s start somewhere even bigger than the functional aspects and make sure we know the following reasons and answers: What is the purpose of this opportunity? Who are we aiming to serve? Why is there a need for this team? How are we partnering with those whom we are serving? How much is this all going to cost? Who are the idea team members? Who is the team leader(s)? How will we work to make our efforts sustainable once we’re gone? How will we engage donors for this event? How would donors like to be engaged? There are many more questions we could ask but this is a starting point to lay down some foundations for establishing a healthy missions trip.  You will see that ServiceReef does far more than simply helping to manage the aspects of your serving/missions opportunities… we work hard to help guide your people to even greater steps of missional living or living out their faith consistently as they serve others.  

What are financial milestones? ServiceReef allows you to set certain milestones (or deposits) along the way for your trip participants.  These milestones serve as goal points, with dates, for when certain funds are due to the organization for the event.   Where does a trip participant view these dates / milestones? These dates are viewable on the event page on the financial tab. Do these dates trigger any automated features? No, these are purely guidance dates set by you but there is no system automation connected with their fundrasing.  

How do I set trip costs? There are many variables to setting up a trip, and many just for the financial management of an event.  Thankfully you have a wide range of options for how you will set up your trip.  Let's unpack these more so they are not confusing.   Where do I go to access this screen? Your organization's ServiceReef account / Event management page / Financial  Are there any costs associated with your event? Most events have some cost (either for the participant to pay or to raise funds).  ServiceReef is first asking if there is some cost associated.  If yes, then click the YES option for the first question.  You will then have the option to enter the total cost of the event and the due date for the total amount.   Are you going to allow donations? If you select YES, then ServiceReef will automatically open the button on the trip page and the individual's page for allowing donations.  If you select NO, then ServiceReef will only allow for this individual to make payment for the event.   What about application fees? ServiceReef doees allow for application fees to be added.  We will unpack this in another post.  Two things for now - first, the application cost is not included in the overall trip cost that you enter here, and second, you must enter the value for this amount on the Application page for event set up.     There are more financial features at your disposal within ServiceReef that we will explore in subsequent posts.  

What type of security does ServiceReef offer for events? Any of us who are engaged in global service events understand the complexity of managing events in "restricted access" countries.  The security of the teams traveling and those you are serving with is significant.   ServiceReef breaks the security of each event into three primary categories.  These three categories allow you (the admin) to set the trip's security level to your deisred level of protection. Three tiers of security Public - These events are public to everyone.  They will show up on your organization's main page and recommended to others on various pages. Organization Only - These events only show up on your organization's ServiceReef page.  ServiceReef does recommend events to people based on their interests so your event has the potential to populate in another person's recommendation list even if not affiliated with your organization.  To turn that off, select this option. Secure - These events are our highest level of security.  Once you select this option the event will not show up on your organization page (or on recommendations).  You must provide someone the direct URL for these events to have them register.  The event page is stripped of the majority of its data and the user isn't allowed to see the trip specifics until they have applied AND they have been accepted.     These three tiers of security allow you to set the necessary level of security for each of your events.  

Did you know each team member has their own personal donation page? We all know the challenges of fundraising for a missions trip... the letters, the emails, the follow up, and the thank you notes.  And it's not just the trip participant that has the challenge, we as trip leaders and organization leaders have challenges engaging our trip participants in their fundraising.   Our goal at ServiceReef is to make this as simple as can be for the trip participant and the organization... but also to respect the donors as best possible.  Let's dive into a few features to help make this better for everyone. Personal Donation Page Every participant on your events have their very own personal donation page.  The user can customize their fundraising letter, load a cover photo, link a video, and present their own landing page for fundraising. Team Stories Stories that are shared by each member of the team all show up on the personal donation page.  We've done this in order for the donor to not only see stories shared by this person, but also the other team members.   Donate Button Each personal donation page has a simple and obvious donate button for others to give online to this individual.  Each time a donation is made this person's balance is automatically updated.