Guide for Creating a Volunteer Application Form in WordPress
Do you want to add a volunteer application form to your WordPress website? If yes, then this guide is for you. Being able to collect volunteer applications online will be great. It means you will no longer waste time reading email applications or reviewing paper forms. But how exactly do you add the volunteer application form to your website?
WPForms Plugin
The first thing you will need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin. This is the best form builder plugin on WordPress. It is easy to use and also comes with WPForms Lite version which is free. Once you activate the plugin, go to WPForms>>Settings page and enter the license key. You then need to proceed to WPForms>>Addons page to install the Template Pack Addon. This addon will give you access to the built-in volunteer application form.
After installing the Addon, go to WPForms>>Add New to create your first form. Scroll to additional templates section and select the Volunteer Recruitment Form template. Click on it and WPForms will create the application form for you. The next thing you need to do is customize it. You will be able to edit any question and answers by clicking on the form field. You can add more questions too by clicking on ‘Add Fields’ tab located at the very top. Don’t forget to check the ‘Required’ box next to the fields that are necessary.
To complete setting up the form, go to Settings>>General. You may consider changing the ‘Submit Button Text’ to something more appropriate like Submit Application, Volunteer Now or Apply Now. You can make virtually any change that you want. Don’t forget to enable the spam honeypot feature. You should also activate the reCAPTCHA so as to reduce spam submissions.
Set up notifications and confirmations
With WPForms, whenever someone submits an application you will get an email notification. You can also setup the form so that volunteers get email notifications that you have received their application. You also need to ensure applicants get on-screen confirmation when they submit their forms. This will happen by default with WPForms. If you want to customize the message you can edit it by going to Settings>>Confirmation.
Add the volunteer application form to your website
Now that your volunteer form is ready, the next step is to add it to your website. You can add it to a page or sidebar. To add it to a page, create new page or edit an existing one then click ‘Add Form’ button. If using Gutenberg, click the ( + ) icon to add a new block then choose WPForms. This is located under widgets. For the classic WordPress editor, you simply click Add Form button located next to the Add Media button at the top. From the WPForms dropdown select Add Form. Publish or update the page. Your volunteer application form has been added.