What is Inactive status?
Inactive status is used for volunteers who are no longer actively participating in your organization, whether temporarily or indefinitely.
Moving a volunteer to Inactive helps keep your Directory organized, prevents administrators from accidentally assigning shifts or sending messages to volunteers who are no longer engaged, and provides a record of why they became inactive.
Inactive status is intended for volunteers who may return in the future. If a volunteer should no longer be permitted to participate in your organization, consider using Banned status instead.
How to move a volunteer to Inactive
Volunteers can be moved to Inactive individually or in bulk from the Directory.
To move an individual volunteer to Inactive, open their profile card by clicking their name, then select Inactive from the Status dropdown.
To move multiple volunteers to Inactive, use the checkboxes beside their names in the Directory and select Move to Inactive from the bulk actions menu. You can also use Directory filters to identify volunteers who meet your organization's criteria for inactivity before applying the bulk action.
A confirmation popup will appear where you'll be required to select an inactive reason.
Once confirmed, the volunteer will immediately be moved to Inactive status and will appear in the Inactive view of the Directory. Volunteers will not receive an email or notification when their status is changed.
What happens when a volunteer becomes inactive?
When a volunteer is moved to Inactive status:
Administrators cannot send them messages through Timecounts.
Administrators cannot assign them to shifts or events.
Any applications they are participating in will be archived and will no longer qualify for onboarding.
Their volunteer record, history, volunteer hours, and past activity remain in your organization.
They continue to appear in reports and historical data.
Inactive status does not prevent volunteers from signing up for future opportunities. If an inactive volunteer signs up for a shift or event, they will automatically be returned to Active status in the Directory.
No information or activity history is deleted when a volunteer is moved to Inactive status.
Managing inactive volunteers
When a volunteer is moved to Inactive status, they are moved to the Inactive view of the Directory. This view allows admins to review and manage inactive volunteers, including the date they became inactive, how they were moved to Inactive, and the inactive reason that was selected.
Inactive reasons can be customized from Settings → Reasons. Timecounts includes a default set of reasons based on common volunteer management practices, but we recommend reviewing and customizing them to match your organization's programs, policies, and reporting needs.
Related article: Managing reasons
Automatically moving volunteers to Inactive
This feature is available on the Pro plan.
Moving volunteers to Inactive status manually is available on all plans. Organizations on the Pro plan can also automatically move volunteers to Inactive after a period of inactivity.
A volunteer is considered inactive if they have not applied for an application, signed up for an opportunity, been scheduled for a shift, replied to a message, or been credited volunteer time through Timecounts during the selected time period.
To configure this setting, navigate to Settings → Rules and locate the Inactive section. Select Automatically move to inactive, choose the number of days a volunteer can remain inactive before being moved, and select the inactive reason that should be applied automatically. Click Save to apply your changes.
Once enabled, Timecounts will automatically move volunteers to Inactive status when they meet the inactivity criteria. The selected inactive reason will be recorded on their profile and in the Inactive view of the Directory.
Restoring a volunteer to Active
If a volunteer is ready to return, you can restore them to Active status. Open the volunteer's profile card and select Active from the Status dropdown. Alternatively, use the checkbox next to their name in the Directory and choose the Move to Active bulk action.
Changing a volunteer's status does not send any email or notification to the volunteer.
Inactive volunteers may also be restored to Active automatically if they sign up for a future opportunity.