If you are an organization or program that wants dedicated nature-loving volunteers - Welcome! We are excited to have you. Organizations really are the backbone of this site. Without your participation, there wouldn't be much for volunteers to find. But with you, we can build a wonderful community.
The site was designed for Master Naturalists so knowing what they are expecting can help you target the activities you include here. Learning opportunities should focus on Wisconsin's natural, environmental or cultural history. If you have workshops that focus on specialized skills for volunteers they would also be great here. These activities should be formal training or workshops and be targeted to adult learners.
For Master Naturalists, volunteer activities should be unpaid, under the direction or guidance of your organization/program and located in Wisconsin or neighboring states. The program focuses on work that falls into Citizen Science, Education and Stewardship. Volunteer work that supports an organization whose mission is focused on natural resources topics also counts. These are the guidelines for Master Naturalists. But remember we are open to all people interested in conservation efforts in Wisconsin. So any volunteer activity that supports that mission is welcome here.
For the purposes of this site - an organization is an 'organizing' entity for activities. Usually an organization will be just that - a nature center, a friends group, visitor centers or watershed associations, for example. But an "organization" might also be programs inside a larger entity - like programs at the DNR. It's all built to help people find opportunities that interest them. Use your judgement about how to enter the data.
A location is a physical address. It will allow us to map the event. There are shared locations, like state parks that are already in the system. Sometimes you might have an activity that uses a nature center (which is its own organization). The system will allow you to use existing locations. If your location is not already in the system, then you can add it. Don't worry if the location isn't 'yours' to manage, if you need to add it just add it. It's more important to make sure that people can find your activity's location. On the backend, we will monitor duplicate locations and may contact you to consolidate these locations later.
If this sounds like your organization, then let's get started!
You can view this How-to Video.
Field Description Organization Name This name will appear as a "sponsor" for activities - and users can search based on your name. About This should be relatively brief but descriptive so volunteers will be able to tell what you do. We will use this description to help us approve your request. The first 250 characters will appear in a scan view, so put the most important information at the top. Users can click in to see the rest of the description. Main URL Use the url that you want users to see when the first go to your site. Region If your organization is based in a specific region in Wisconsin, you can pick it here. This is just informational for volunteers looking at your organization. Contact Email This field is really important because we will use this email to communicate with you about the request. You will want to use this email when you register to the site to manage the organization in the future. You will be able to add more people to manage this organization in the future. Contact Name REQUIRED. Contact Title OPTIONAL, but helpful Authorized to represent the organization We are asking you to confirm your role. Once this organization is created you will be responsible for maintaining the organization going forward. We expect only authorized folks to be submit requests.
After your request is approved, you will receive an email from Wild Paths Wisconsin (it comes from mary@eckmeier.com right now). In the email, you will find a link to asking you to register for the site.
The confirm email button should take you to a login screen - but if not go to WildPathsWi.org and look for the LOGIN button near the bottom of the page. 1. Type your username (or you can use your email - both will work). 2. Type your password.
NOTE that if you forget your password, there is a Forgot Password link on this page.
Once you are successfully logged in, the system will automatically make you a manager to your Organization. When you are a manager, you will see a new button at the very bottom of the page (where the login used to be).
NOTE: if something goes wrong and you are not able to see this page, please submit a feedback request and indicate that you are having login problems. Provide your username and Organization name. Someone will get back to you with a resolution.
NOTE: if you wish to have someone else also manage your organization, have that person REGISTER. There is a button at the bottom of the main page of WildPathsWi.org. Once they have created a new login, you will be able to use their email address to add them to the Managers section of your organization.
You can view this how-to-video to see managing your organization in action.
Activities are the primary object in our application. To add a new activity, click the PLUS sign in the Activities section header.
Field Description Title REQUIRED. This is the main name of your activity. It will appear at the top of each card. Type REQUIRED. Activities are either Volunteer or Learn. Org This will already be filled in for you. URL for Activity Use this slot for more information about this particular activity. Activity Contact Use this lot for an email. You must have EITHER a URL or a Contact email - otherwise users won't know how to get in touch with you! $ this little checkbox between url and contact is for activities that come with a cost. Just so users can be prepared that the learning activity might not be free. Description Descriptions will show with the first 200 or so characters, but will expand when the user clicks on them. To make it easier for users to tell if they want to pursue this activity, make sure you start off with the key information. You can use a lot of characters here if you want to add in other details, though. The field will expand when the user clicks on it. Prerequisites If your activity requires previous training, or the volunteer activity requires users to have some abilities, be sure to include it here.
This section is for the when and where... depending on your activity you might have just one session... but you could also have multiple sessions and it's easy to add more here. Consider each session corresponds to a single date on the calendar view. The session dates are summarized in other views of the activity.
Field Description Format In Person = you will need to pick a location. Online = you will need to pick a URL. Hybrid = if the main event is in-person, but there is a way to join online then call it Hybrid. You can specify both a URL and a Location. Self-selected locations - if your volunteer event is done at the volunteers discretion, then use this choice. URL for Online and Hybrid - it must be in a url format (www.mysite.org/trainingsession for example). Location If you have a default location, it will populate here automatically. But if you have not created a location yet - you can add one now (look below for more details). You can also find locations that might already be in the system. For example, all the state parks are already loaded. If you are a friends organization, for example, you can just pick your state park. Ongoing This checkbox indicates that the activity is happening over a range of times. These events will not appear in the calendar view, but you can always see them in the Volunteer or Learn views. You can filter to just ongoing events once you are on that view. When you check Ongoing, you will see a start and end date field to specify the active dates for your activity. Outside that range, the event will no longer appear in active lists for end users. Leave these fields blank if you just want the activity to remain active. Activity Date If your event is not ongoing, then you will need to log a separate session for each day it occurs. If you have a 3-day conference, you would need a separate session for each day. This will cause your activity to appear on each day in the Calendar view. If you only want the event to show on the calendar on the initial date, type the first date here. You can use the time comment field to say that the session in over the course of multimple days. Time Comment You can specify times - or if you event spans multiple days, you could indicate that in this free form comment field.
If you created a location while adding in your activity above, you will see that location in the Location section. You can use the Pencil button to edit it and add in address details. You will need to include a full address to get a flag icon on the map. Locations without flags, will still appear on the Location List page.
Field Description Name Use this field to describe the location using a short name. Address Street Address City City State This field defaults to WI Zip Code The zip code field will be used to populate the County and Region. There are zip codes that cross counties though, so if we picked the wrong one for you - you are able to change them. About Use this field for a longer description of the location. Location website OPTIONAL. If your location has it's own web page, you can include it here. Location email OPTIONAL. If your location has a specific contact email you can include that here. Region The region pick here will drive the map icon on your location and activities. County The county tells us which region to pick. It is also a search option for the end user.