In Settings → Notifications, choose when your admins get an email:
- When a volunteer submits an application (on by default).
- When a background check completes (on by default) — including re-screens. Re-screen authorizations also trigger an immediate admin alert when the volunteer signs.
A separate Volunteer messages section on the same tab controls two more toggles:
- Show a bell notification when a volunteer sends a message (on by default).
- Email admins on each volunteer message, so you can reply right from your inbox (off by default).
You'll also see in-app notifications in the bell menu in the top banner. New alerts arrive live while the dashboard is open (and show a brief toast if the bell panel is closed). Dismissing a notification updates the inbox across your open sessions. Re-screens use distinct alerts (authorization received and re-screen complete). First-time checks use a general check complete alert. The teammate who originally invited a volunteer is still notified directly when that report is ready.
Emails VolunteerBadge sends your volunteers
A third section on the same tab, Emails to your volunteers, controls the optional emails we send your applicants directly — free Academy training they can add to their LinkedIn profile, and occasional product news. The first of these reaches an applicant about an hour after they submit an application.
- Let VolunteerBadge email my volunteers about free training and product news (on by default). Turn it off and we stop sending them to everyone in your organization, including applicants who arrive through the API or a webhook flow. It takes effect immediately.
- Email volunteers when a badge we sponsored is about to expire (on by default). These are the 2-week, 3-day, and expired notes about the portable VolunteerBadge, which stays valid for 90 days and can offer an optional self-renewal. They are not your re-screen interval and do not change a volunteer's standing with you. Turning this off stops them only for badges backed by your organization's check. A volunteer who later pays to renew their own badge can still get a reminder unless they unsubscribe.
The two Friday emails
Separately from everything above, VolunteerBadge sends two short emails every Friday morning, both built from that week's articles on the blog. A week with nothing new published sends nothing at all.
- The weekly recap, to the owner of each organization signed up with us, at about 9:15am Eastern. It is part of the same educational email as our other tips, and it uses the same unsubscribe link — if you have already unsubscribed from those, you will not receive it, and unsubscribing from it stops the others too. It is not controlled by the Emails to your volunteers setting, which is about mail to your applicants rather than to you.
- The volunteer digest, to volunteers who hold a VolunteerBadge account, about an hour later. These are articles written for volunteers rather than for the people who run them, with links to their own badge, to roles posted by organizations that screen with VolunteerBadge, and to free Academy training. Volunteers are included by default and are told so when they create their account.
Every volunteer digest carries a one-click unsubscribe in the body as well as the footer, and the Unsubscribe button Gmail and Outlook show at the top of the message works too. Neither needs a sign-in, and both take effect immediately. It is its own subscription: unsubscribing from the Friday articles does not stop the weekly opportunity digest or the badge-expiry reminders, each of which has its own unsubscribe link, and it never stops anything transactional.
Turning it off never affects anything required. Application confirmations, screening updates, FCRA disclosures and adverse-action notices are transactional and are always sent. Applicants under 18 are never sent these optional emails at all, whatever this setting says.
Volunteers can also opt out for themselves without waiting on you: every one of these emails carries an unsubscribe link in the footer and a one-click Unsubscribe button that Gmail and Outlook show at the top of the message. No account or sign-in is needed, and an unsubscribe is permanent across every future campaign.
Adverse-action alerts appear in the bell when a case is opened (report with records released), when a consumer dispute is submitted, and when CRA finishes dispute review. These link straight to the case in Compliance.