Your volunteer portal (for volunteers)

Manage your whole volunteer life at volunteerbadge.com/badge — badge & renewals, the orgs you serve with, logging hours, certificates, secure messaging, and nearby opportunities.

Your volunteer portal at volunteerbadge.com/badgeis home base for your whole volunteer life. Sign in with your email (we send a one-time code — no password) and everything is in one place, on desktop, tablet, or phone. Occasionally we'll ask a quick one-question feedback survey in the portal — answering (or dismissing) it means we won't ask again for months. And after an organization approves your application, we may send a one-time email asking for a quick 0–10 rating.

About an hour after you submit an application, we also send one email about free VolunteerBadge Academy courses you can take and add to LinkedIn while the organization reviews it. You get it whether or not you have an account, only once, and it has an unsubscribe link. We never send it to applicants whose date of birth shows they are under 18.

How the page is laid out

The portal is one scrolling page — there is no Settings screen and no top-right menu. From the top: your badge card(status, Verification ID, valid-through date, days remaining) → the auto-renew card → Email me when my badge is about to expire → message notifications → Renew → Share your badge → your public profile(headshot, interests & causes, intro video, privacy toggles) → Free training & certificates(Academy courses and earned certificates). If something isn't in that list, email support@screenforgelabs.com rather than hunting for it.

What's in your portal

Your badge:status, verification ID, expiration, $5 self-renewal (same identity fields as an application — middle name or “I have no middle name,” masked SSN, address autocomplete), and a Quarterly auto-renew ON/OFF switch directly under the badge (flip it on to save a card with no charge today, or flip it off anytime — no confirmation step; your badge stays valid through its existing expiry). Directly under that card, Email me when my badge is about to expire turns the 2-week, 3-day, and expired reminder emails off or back on. Turning those emails off does not cancel your badge or change auto-renew. Also a shareable badge link + QR any organization can verify — they see status only, never your report. Organizations you already serve can also copy your Verification ID from your volunteer profile, so they can give it to you if you cannot get back into this portal.
Where you serve:every organization you're connected with, with your status and verified hours at each.
Log hours:submit hours to any connected organization right from the portal — they go to that org's leaders for approval and count once verified (organizations approve under Dashboard → Hours).
Share my certificate: on each approved organization, open Share my certificate to download the Certificate of Appreciation, add Volunteer — org name to LinkedIn (the nonprofit is the issuer), announce it on LinkedIn, Facebook, or X, copy the public link, or turn sharing off. A Certificate of Service with verified hours stays a download in the same drawer — it is not the LinkedIn credential. The public page shows your name, the organization, the issue date, and the certificate ID — never screening status, hours, or your report.
Free training & certificates: search VolunteerBadge Academy courses, build a learning plan, and download certificates you've earned. Each Academy certificate has an Add to LinkedInbutton that sends LinkedIn's Licenses & Certifications form the course name, VolunteerBadge Academy as the issuer, the issue date, and a link to the public verification page. You check the details, fill in anything missing and save it in LinkedIn — you do not need to sign in to VolunteerBadge with LinkedIn.
Documents & Sharing: after a self-funded screening finishes, download your Screening Scope Certificate (every search category, jurisdiction, and named data source — never records), copy a verification link, or email it to an organization. Your full background-check report stays on the same card as download only — VolunteerBadge will not send the report on your behalf. Organizations that ran their own check can download a privacy-safe summary (identifiers stripped) from your profile — see full vs privacy-safe report PDFs.
Secure messaging:message the leaders of any organization you're applying to or serving with, right from the portal — from the moment you connect through your whole time volunteering. They see it on their dashboard (and you get an email when they reply). No sharing phone numbers.
Nearby & next: open roles in your state, nonprofits and churches close to you, your applications and saved roles — plus Victor, your personal volunteer advisor. He learns the causes you love and matches you with places to serve — and he can act for you: raise your hand at a nonprofit (“I want to volunteer here”), find open roles and apply on your behalf, log your hours to a connected organization, and update your public interests and privacy settings — just ask.
Your public profile: personalize your shared badge page — add a headshot, list the causes you love, and record a 30-second intro video right in the page (click Record and your camera opens; recording stops automatically, and you review the take before saving). If you completed biometric ID verification, your headshot is pre-filled from your ID photo automatically — keep it, or click Replace to use a different photo. Each is offuntil you switch on its “show on my public badge page” toggle, so nothing appears publicly until you choose to show it. You can also claim a vanity link(volunteerbadge.com/v/your-name, first come first served) and switch the portal between light and dark mode from the header. Public verify and badge attestation pages also follow the visitor's saved or device theme.
Your report, your rights: once a screening is complete, a “My report” button appears next to that organization — your own background-check report, free to download anytime. Self-pay screenings also put the report under Documents & Sharing (download only — VolunteerBadge will not email it). Organizations keep their own privacy-safe summary when they need proof without your personal details — full vs privacy-safe report PDFs. If anything on it looks inaccurate or incomplete, dispute it at screenforgelabs.com/disputes — we reinvestigate free of charge, generally within 30 days.
Getting invited by an organization: when a non-profit views your public badge page, they can click Invite to bring you into their program without making you re-apply — your application details and identity verification carry straight over. You'll get an email to authorize their background checkin one tap (each organization needs its own authorization; the badge itself is never a substitute for their check). If that organization uses automated character references or SMART Health Cards, you'll be prompted for those next.
Extras: your SMART Health Card wallet and your invite-a-friend link (each friend who earns a badge = a free renewal for you).

Getting connected to an organization

You appear as “connected” to an organization once it screens you or accepts your application. Secure messaging is available throughout — you can message an organization while your application is in review and after you're approved, and reply any time its leaders reach out.

If your own screening cannot be verified

When you pay for your own badge screening and a record cannot be confirmed at the source courthouse, the portal stops saying the check is in progress. You will see a notice on your badge card and a button, Acknowledge and refund $5. That closes the screening and refunds the $5 to the card you used. It is not a Clear or Consider result, and your badge does not activate from that screening. You can run a new $5 screening from the same page after the refund. We also email you a link back to this portal. An organization that invited you still acknowledges its own checks from its dashboard — this button is only for a screening you paid for yourself.