Volunteer operations for the chapter that runs on Saturdays.
Headwaters handles people, events, check-in and volunteer hours for a small nonprofit, and the reports come out ready for a grant application. It's built for the volunteers who actually run the day, usually from a parking lot at seven in the morning with a phone.
The demo is a real copy of Headwaters on a made-up chapter. We'll email you a link to get in.
Everything else is built on these.
A person is not a registration.
One human gets one record, however many times they show up. Their history, hours and consents stay with that record, not with each event's signup sheet. When someone asks what Dana has done for you over four years, you can answer in one click.
A login is optional.
Most people volunteer once, and asking them to make an account first loses a lot of them. Signup is passwordless: a signed personal link that also handles their check-in and hour log. Anyone who wants an account can claim one later, and nobody ends up with two identities.
A cleanup, a workday, a monitoring morning or a board meeting.
A river cleanup is one event type among several. They all use the same signup, check-in and hour ledger, and each type only shows the parts that make sense for it. A workday is never thanked for collecting zero bags.
Signup in two clicks
Name, contact, emergency contact, and only what this event type needs. A waiting list takes over when it's full, and there's a short link and QR code for the flyer.
The planner sends people where the work is
Crews are sized by how much work each site needs, and boats, waders and cars are spread across teams first. If the plan doesn't fit the morning, the planner says by how much rather than quietly dropping sites.
A coordinator link, not a login
The roster, one-tap check-in, walk-up registration and safety reports, all on a phone. The link expires the day after the event.
Wrap up in one action
One action checks out anyone still on site (at the event's end time, not when you clicked), freezes the results and thanks the people who came. Each thank-you shows what the day added up to and what that person gave.
One invitation to stay
First-timers get one email inviting them to finish a profile, with everything already prefilled, and a one-click way to never be asked again. They're asked at most twice, ever.
A report you re-run in three years still matches the one you filed.
- Hours come from check-in and check-out, a monthly self-report reminder, or staff entry, and every entry records which.
- Self-reported hours wait for approval by default.
- Each entry freezes the Independent Sector value of volunteer time on its own date, so donated-time dollars don't drift.
- Every change goes into an append-only audit log.
- CSV out for the treasurer and the grant officer. A CSV import for the four years of volunteers already in a spreadsheet maps your columns, previews before writing, and removes duplicates.
| Date | Work | Source | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 12 | Mill Run cleanup | Check-in | 3.75 |
| Apr 30 | Stream monitoring | Self · approved | 2.00 |
| May 03 | Grant writing | Staff | 1.50 |
| May 17 | Tree planting | Check-in | 4.25 |
Example data. Each row keeps the rate that applied on its own date.
Built for the riverbank, not the office.
The people running your events are volunteers who know the river. Headwaters keeps the dashboard to five plain buttons. Anything that changes what your numbers mean sits behind an Advanced switch that stays off until an administrator turns it on.
Works with no signal
Check-in taps are queued on the phone with their real timestamps and sent when reception comes back, so the hours reflect the morning.
Safety reports in one tap
Emergency, injury, hazard or need a hand. Location is attached if the phone can get it in six seconds; if not, the report goes without it. Coordinators can't switch these alerts off.
Water quality, recorded on site
A stream-monitoring sheet you can fill in with one thumb, trended per site over years and published as a plain-language health report.
Sites that outlive the event
The same stretch of river, landowner and parking problem every year. You're warned 60 days before an access agreement lapses.
Gear and announcements
Kit lists sized to how many signed up, showing what's short and what hasn't come back. Safety announcements show who has and hasn't confirmed reading them.
Partners and groups
A partner contact can register their whole group. Headcounts are shared between partners and hours are split, so nobody's totals are counted twice.
Your volunteers' data stays on your site.
Headwaters makes no outside requests. Fonts and the QR code generator are bundled, and there are no trackers. Thirteen public-display switches are each labeled with what they expose, and they default to private. Deleting the plugin deletes no data unless an administrator has turned that on.
Try it on a made-up chapter.
The demo is a real copy of Headwaters, loaded with a fictional watershed council's programs, events, volunteers and hours. Sign people up, run a check-in, log hours or file a safety report.
- Enter your email and we'll send you a link. No password.
- It's shared with other visitors and resets every hour, so nothing you enter is kept.
- Emails from inside the demo are never sent.
- Once you're in, that browser stays signed in for 30 days.
What people ask first.
Do volunteers have to make an account?
No, and most never will. Signing up gives them a personal link that handles check-in and logging hours for years. Accounts are there for people who want one.
Can somebody run an event without a WordPress login?
Yes. An administrator issues a coordinator link for one event, as a URL and a QR code. It works on any phone and stops working the day after the event. Emergency contacts are only included if the administrator chooses that level of access on purpose.
What do we need to run it?
WordPress 6.2 or later, PHP 7.4 or later, and pretty permalinks. An SMTP plugin is strongly recommended for email delivery. Headwaters detects WP Mail SMTP and warns you when your sending domain will fail DMARC.
Does it work with our page builder?
Headwaters builds its public pages for you in the block editor, Divi 4, Divi 5 or Elementor, whichever your site actually runs.
We already have years of volunteers in a spreadsheet.
The importer maps your columns rather than demanding ours, shows a preview before writing anything, and removes duplicates as it goes. There's also a read-only import from River Cleanup Manager.
What happens to our data if we stop using it?
Nothing. Uninstalling removes no data unless an administrator has explicitly turned that on. Everything can be exported to CSV at any time, and WordPress's own privacy export and erase tools work with it.
Tell us about your chapter.
Headwaters is available to organizations by request while we onboard chapters one at a time. Tell us a little about yours and we'll be in touch.
Want to look around first? Open the demo. It only needs an email address.