Getting Participants

So you now have your non-profit organisations selected (and added to the event data on the site) – the next step is to start getting people involved in the event. It’s generally a good idea to open up participant applications at least a month before the event, but preferably longer if you can spare the time. This is because some people often take a long time to decide if they want to be involved, and it also gives you plenty of time to contact local freelancers and/or agencies to see if you can get them to sign up as well.

If this is your first time running a do_actiondo_action do_action hackathons are community-organised events that are focussed on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organisations their own online presence. Learn more on doaction.org. event in your area, then it does often mean a lot of cold-calling to get people to sign up as participants, but once you have done this event at least once then you will find that people will sign up a lot quicker each time. A good idea is to get the word out to your local WordPress meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. members.

To open your event up for sign-ups, all you need to do is change your event status to ‘Accepting participant sign-ups’. Once you have done that, there will be a new form at the bottom of your event page that will allow individuals to do the following:

  1. Select the non-profit organisation with which they are going to work.
  2. Select their role on the team.
  3. Fill in their details (name, email address & phone number).

Once they have done all of that and submitted the form they will immediately be added to their selected team in the role that they chose. They will also receive an email confirming their involvement and informing them that the event organiser will be in touch with more details closer to the time. They will also be reminded to read the Participant’s Guide to get an idea of what is expected of them now that they have signed up.

Participant Roles

By default, each non-profit build team has the following 7 roles available:

  • Project Manager
  • Content Creator
  • Social Media Manager
  • Designer
  • 2 Developers
  • Quality Assurance Tester

You can, however, change this for each non-profit, so it is infinitely flexible. If there are additional roles that you feel should be made available then let us know and we’ll add them as options.

Top ↑

Keeping track of sign-ups

While you won’t be notified of every new sign up (as that would result in a lot of email spam), you will be able to see a list of all of your non-profits as well as the members of their build teams on one page. If you login to this site and go to the ‘edit event’ page then, below the standard event details, you will see all of the relevant information about who is on each build team. You can check back on this page as often as you like in order to keep tabs on how things are going.

Top ↑

A note about Project Managers

All of the build team roles are treated exactly the same in terms of the information that they receive, except for the Project Manager on each team. Because the individuals in the Project Manager role are expected to contact the non-profit organisation some time before the actual event, they are given access to those contact details, as well as the details of who is on their build team. This is given by linking them to the non-profit’s page on the site, which is password protected. On that page you will find the non-profit’s contact details as well as the build team list and all of their contact information.

The password for these pages defaults to do_action, but a random password is generated for the page when the Project Manager signs up and that password is included in the confirmation email that they receive.

Top ↑

A note about vetting participants

Because the participants are automatically added to the teams, you could feasibly have sign-ups from people who are in no way qualified to fill the role that they have chosen. While this is unlikely (as people are probably not going to sign up for a job that they are not suited for), it can happen. If you are unsure about a particular applicant then spend some time searching for them on the internet to see what you can find. If you see some clear red flags then get in touch with them and ask them about it, but remember to always give them the benefit of the doubt. The vetting of participants is up to you as the event organiser.

Last updated: