Creating your organization

Creating an organization on OrganizeOS takes three or four short steps. Each one asks for a small number of choices and explains what they change, and a panel beside the steps shows what you are setting up as you go. You can go back to any finished step from the progress bar at the top.

Start from Create organization in the sidebar menu, from your dashboard, or from the Create your organization link on the sign-up page if you do not have an account yet.

Step 1: What are you building

Choose between an organization and a campaign.

• An organization is for groups that last: unions, nonprofits, advocacy and community organizations, cooperatives, student groups. You get members, dues, chapters, departments, and the full set of engagement tools.
• A campaign is for a time-bound effort: a candidate, a ballot measure, an issue campaign, a PAC. You get path-to-victory tracking, voter contact, and donations that understand FEC rules.

This choice shapes your dashboard and cannot be changed later. If you started from Launch a campaign or Create organization, the choice is already made and this step is skipped, so you go straight to the details.

Step 2: Details

Give it a name. Your workspace address comes from the name (for example riverside-tenants.organizeos.org); if that address is already taken we add a number to the end, and you can connect your own domain later.

A description is optional and appears on your public page.

The type is optional too. Picking the closest match (a local union, a 501(c)(3), a professional society, a utility cooperative, a volunteer fire company, a state campaign) tailors the structure we suggest in the next step. You can set or change it later.

Step 3: Structure

This step is where your workspace takes shape. Two ideas matter:

• Departments group your team by what they work on: Field, Communications, Finance, and so on. Later you can appoint department admins who manage their own department without workspace-wide access.
• Roles decide what each person can do. Owner, Admin, and Member are always built in. Custom roles sit between them and grant exactly the access a job needs: an Organizer, a Fundraiser, a Steward.

Pick a starting point. Each template is a realistic structure for a kind of organization, such as a union local, an advocacy group, a community organization, a nonprofit or coalition, a cooperative, a student organization, a campaign headquarters, or an issue campaign. If you chose a type in the previous step, the matching template is marked Recommended and already selected. Start simple creates no departments or roles at all.

Everything a template proposes is editable before you create anything. Departments and roles are listed one per line; open a line with its arrow to see or change its details.

• Rename a department, remove it, or add your own. Open it to write a short description.
• Open a department to see Admins can assign: the roles that department's admins will be able to give their people, such as Organizer for Organizing or Steward for Stewards and Grievances. Select a role to add or remove it. Member is always assignable, and Owner and Admin never are. The colored dots on a closed department show its roles at a glance.
• Switch off any role you do not need, or rename it. Open a role to see what it is for and which areas of the workspace it works in; the exact permissions can be fine-tuned later.
• Switching between templates keeps your edits on each one, so you can compare. Reset changes puts the selected template back the way it started.

If two departments end up with the same name you are asked to rename one before continuing.

Step 4: Review

Check everything in one place: what you are building, the name and address, the type, and the departments (with the roles each one's admins can assign) and roles that will be created. Change on any group takes you back to that step. Then choose Create organization or Launch campaign, and your workspace opens.

If the organization cannot be created (for example, the name is not allowed), the reason appears next to the button and nothing is created. If your connection drops while it is being created, you are told to check your dashboard before trying again, because it may already exist.

What happens next

Your workspace opens as soon as your organization is created, with the departments and roles you chose already in place under Access. You can invite your team right away.

Owners and admins see a Finish setting up list on the workspace home. Each row opens its step and brings you back to the list when you finish or skip it. The list goes away once your details are approved and you have chosen a plan.

• Verify your details. Tell us who runs the organization or campaign, and add its EIN or FEC committee ID if it has one. Our team reviews the details. Until your organization is approved, visitors to your public site see a holding page, and taking donations needs your organization verified. Your workspace works the whole time. While we review, the row shows In review. If your details are not approved, See why shows the reason and how to appeal.
• Add your brand colors (optional). They are used on your public site.
• Connect payments (optional). Connect Stripe to take donations and sell tickets.
• Choose a plan. Start on the free plan, or pick a paid plan and enter your payment details.

Right after you submit your details, you can change the address your public site and workspace link use. It starts as the address you were given, and Keep this address keeps it. If you type a new one, Change address & continue moves your site to it and the old address stops working, so choose it before you share any links. An address is 3 to 50 characters of lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, and cannot start or end with a hyphen.

For the first month, owners and admins see a Your structure card on the workspace dashboard. It lists each department with how many people and department admins it has, each custom role with how many people hold it, and the next step to take, such as adding people to a department or appointing its admin.

If the departments and roles could not be created for any reason, your organization still exists and your workspace home tells you so; add them from Access.

Adjusting the structure later

Nothing you choose here is locked in. Manage departments under Access, then Departments (see Departments) and roles under Access, then Roles (see Roles and permissions for your team). When you create a chapter, you can copy your organization's structure into it or start it from a template (see Chapters and your network).