40+ Ways to Customize BambooHR for Nonprofits

For HR in the nonprofit industry, choosing the right tech stack is like building a well-run outreach program. You need something reliable, adaptable, and ready to support every moving part. As a lean team tackling mission-critical challenges—like managing multiple roles, ensuring compliance, and onboarding staff and volunteers quickly—you need more than a generic HRIS.

That’s why BambooHR® offers extensive options for customization, so you can build a complete HR toolkit tailored to the specific needs of your organization and industry.

Read on to see how nonprofit HR pros just like you are using BambooHR to create the perfect solution for their people.

Key takeaways

  • Custom fields and tables let your nonprofit track essential, unique data like grant funding sources and volunteer hours for streamlined recordkeeping.
  • Streamline your high-turnover cycles by creating custom candidate statuses, application questions, and new-hire welcome packet templates.
  • Advanced approval workflows and granular custom access levels ensure compliance while giving all team members the right specific permissions.
  • Simplify complex nonprofit payroll with multiple pay rates and use geolocation time tracking for accurate, mobile workforce data.
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Data and reporting

BambooHR makes it easy to gather all the data you need and manage it exactly how you want. With extensive data field options and custom reporting, BambooHR empowers you to create a centralized, comprehensive HR database for everything your production team needs, from streamlined recordkeeping to tracking volunteer hours and certifications.

Standard fields and tables

With BambooHR, adding data fields and tables is simple. Start with the Standard Fields Library, which lists dozens of pre-made fields and tables you can add or remove in your account.

The Standard Fields Library houses a wide range of information relevant to HR, including options for time off management, benefits administration, and more—so you don’t waste time building out fields to meet your basic data needs.

Custom fields

Nonprofit work involves a lot of detailed recordkeeping, with many of the required data varying by program or funding source. Luckily, BambooHR makes it easy to add any custom fields you might need by going through the Employee Profile or Settings.

From tracking equipment to documenting employee certifications, custom fields can collect any data point you want.

Here are some examples of custom fields used by our nonprofit customers:

Options for field types include:

Custom calculations

In addition to regular custom fields, you can also personalize your account with custom calculations. This turns time-consuming tasks—like tracking certification renewal deadlines or adding up bonuses—into a simple automated process.

BambooHR can create the following calculation fields:

Custom field translation

Nonprofit teams often include employees and volunteers with diverse language backgrounds. Making sure everyone on your team can access and understand essential HR information is key to maintaining productivity, safety, and a strong sense of belonging.

With BambooHR, you can translate any custom fields you create into your team’s preferred languages, ensuring equitable access for everyone.

BambooHR currently supports:

Required and optional fields

While it’s great getting to know your people as much as possible, not every data field needs to be mandatory. BambooHR lets you be more hands-on with the employee user experience and control which fields are required or optional to fill out.

"Don't be afraid to customize fields. I know that it isn't exactly HR-related, but we track food allergies and t-shirt sizes through BambooHR. When organizing an event, we just run a report before we order food or t-shirts to make sure we are prepared."

Laurie Masters | HR Manager | SEK-CAP, Inc.

Custom data tables

Like fields, you can customize tables to display the key data you need. When creating a custom data table, you have two types to choose from:

Here are some examples of custom tables used by our nonprofit customers:

Custom table
Data collected
Contract details
  • Start date
  • End date
  • Contract name
  • Notes
Incident Tracker
  • Incident date
  • Treatment
  • Status
  • Workers comp claim number
  • Incident notes
Job Skills
  • Skill
  • Skill grade
  • Notes

Add a custom tab

While BambooHR comes with a large selection of tabs you can add directly to your account, if you have a more individualized need, you can request custom tabs. For instance, if you track volunteer supplies or issue materials like name badges and event gear, you can create a resources tab to keep all relevant records in one place.

Email alerts

Custom email alerts make it easy to send employees reminders to update information or follow up on time-sensitive tasks. For example, you can set up automatic reminder emails for certification renewals or training deadlines.

Customize and manage file folders

Maintaining an organized system for documents is essential to managing all the paperwork that goes into HR for nonprofits. Whether you’re looking for employee training records or organization policies, BambooHR keeps things simple with easy-to-manage folders you can quickly create, rename, and rearrange based on your current filing needs.

Custom reports

In BambooHR, you have access to over 40 standard reports. But if you need to get even more specific, generating a custom report is quick and simple. You can choose all the fields you want to include, as well as select specially calculated fields that pull partial information or combine data from multiple fields (such as employee age or length of service).

Design your custom report to present the key HR metrics you need by filtering, sorting, and grouping the results.

"I save time by not creating a million reports from raw personal data from paper files, as BambooHR creates these reports for us. BambooHR also has reports that we didn't even think to run, and it tracks data we have never tracked before. This allows us to better serve our employees and help lead them in their growth within the company."

Brittany Arbogast | Controller | Barbour Community Health Association

Approvals

Overseeing approval processes is an important day-to-day responsibility for your HR team. Custom approval forms and advanced workflows ensure that every approval process is seamlessly managed through BambooHR.

Custom approval forms

You can set up custom approval processes to go along with any of your custom fields or tables. For example, if you need to approve mileage reimbursements, you can create an approval form for employees to submit, along with uploading a copy of their receipt in their profile’s documents tab.

Here are some ways you can customize your approval forms:

Advanced approvals

Between managers, deskworkers, and volunteers, not everyone in your workforce has the same responsibilities, and they don’t all follow the same workflows and approval processes. To accommodate the needs of all your team members, you can divert employees’ approval paths based on several factors, including:

With each approval path, you can define who makes requests and who has the power to approve them, allowing for workflows that reflect every team’s particular operations.

Access levels

An HRIS holds a lot of sensitive data, which makes controlling access for users a compliance issue. Access levels ensure all your employees can navigate BambooHR efficiently, accessing everything they need—and nothing they shouldn’t.

You can make custom access levels highly specific, narrowing access down to discrete functions within BambooHR. For instance, a custom access level might enable select users to add or terminate employees, but not allow them to perform any other employee profile actions.

Employees

Control how much access a user has to employee profiles. You can create a custom access level with permission to perform some or all of the following actions:

Hiring

Decide what someone can do within the Applicant Tracking System. These settings are especially useful when creating a custom access level for hiring managers, so they can stay on top of fast-paced hiring cycles. Options for hiring actions include:

Time tracking

Are your managers responsible for timesheets? Create a custom access level with the ability to perform time-tracking actions. Options for time-tracking permissions include:

Reports

Give select users extra flexibility with creating custom reports. Employees with this access level setting will be able to generate new custom reports based on any of the fields and employee information they are allowed to view.

Custom report and records access is especially useful when working with vendors and subcontractors—they can generate the reports they need without hassle, and your internal data stays secure.

Company files

Empower employees with administrative responsibilities by giving them direct access to managing files. Decide whether or not a custom access level can do the following:

Settings

To create an access level that gives users greater administrative control without making them full admins, you can adjust access levels for account settings. Custom access options for settings include:

Viewing permissions

Each custom Access Level can have its own viewing permissions. Control what user groups can see on their own profiles, other employee profiles, and the BambooHR homepage.

Display

Customizing displays within BambooHR is easy. Whether you’re adjusting the color and design for the whole organization or arranging widgets on your individual account, you can make BambooHR truly your own.

Logo and color

Make your BambooHR account feel like home by uploading your nonprofit organization’s logo and choosing from over 40 color scheme options. Your logo will appear next to the administrative tabs within your BambooHR account and on your external-facing careers website.

Color code and add icons to time off categories

Keep your Who’s Out calendar and Time Off Schedule report organized exactly how you like them by choosing color codes and icons for each time off category. Customizing the color codes and icons for time off ensures your internal brand stays consistent and gives your people a coherent shorthand for time off planning.

Insights dashboard

Individuals with administrative access can customize their Insights Dashboard to include the information and reports they care about most, such as benefit enrollments, time off requests, or employee age distribution.

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Hiring, onboarding, and offboarding

Hiring in nonprofits comes with its unique challenges. With high turnover, shifting funding sources, and a diverse talent pool, you need a streamlined system that can keep up. Nonprofits often expand and contract their teams rapidly, so the ability to hire, onboard, and offboard quickly and dynamically is essential. BambooHR allows you to manage all these processes effortlessly in one connected platform, helping you stay agile no matter how your staffing needs change.

Custom candidate statuses

When you hire for a nonprofit role, the application process often looks a little different than it does for a traditional desk job. With BambooHR, you can create custom candidate statuses to keep your hiring process organized and aligned with how your team actually works—whether that includes background checks, required certifications, or mission-specific skill assessments.

These custom steps appear in the status dropdown list, giving hiring managers a clear view of where each candidate stands.

Custom candidate sources

Keep track of your recruiting strategies and referral incentive programs by adding a custom field for candidate sources. For each candidate, you’ll have a record of exactly how they came to apply for the position, whether it was through a job board, job fair, employee referral, or other recruiting source.

Custom application questions

Job application questions don’t have to be generic. With BambooHR® Applicant Tracking, you can write custom questions for job applications. Choose from several question-and-answer formats, including:

BambooHR saves your custom questions, so when it’s time to post a new job opening, you can immediately add your go-to custom questions without any extra effort.

Disqualifying questions

Disqualifying questions make it easy to focus on your most qualified candidates from the start. If an applicant doesn’t meet key requirements like a specific certification, work eligibility, or travel availability, BambooHR can automatically remove them from the qualified pool. It’s a simple way to keep your hiring process fast and efficient.

Automated emails

With BambooHR’s automated emails, candidates stay informed at every stage—receiving confirmations, updates, and next steps without manual follow-up from your team. This helps create a smooth, professional hiring experience while saving time for the people managing the process.

Applicant tracking system integrations

If you already have an applicant tracking system you’d like to keep using, BambooHR has your back. Get the best of both worlds by syncing BambooHR with your favorite ATS—you’ll use all the systems you love without having to juggle data between them.

Here are some of the popular ATS options available through the BambooHR® Marketplace:

Background check integrations

Don’t let complicated background check processes slow down your hiring process. With several leading background check programs available in the BambooHR Marketplace, your potential hires can navigate the process with efficiency and confidence.

Popular choices for background checks include:

New-hire welcome packets

Save time during onboarding and avoid common mistakes by creating your own packet template for new hires. When creating a new hire packet template in BambooHR, you can add any important first-day information and a set of “get to know you” questions.

To further personalize the onboarding experience, you can use the answers in the new hire packets to automatically send out an introduction email to employees, so they can welcome their new team member.

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Time tracking

In BambooHR, you can manage pay rates and timesheets exactly how you need. With easy pay rate customizations and ample time tracking integrations, BambooHR serves as your personalized time tracking hub.

Multiple project pay rates

If your employees work at several different pay rates, you need an HRIS that can handle multiple rates. With BambooHR, managing pay rates is a breeze, allowing you to add all the pay rates you need to employee records and time tracking.

Physical time clock integrations

Prefer to manage time with a physical clock-in system? With BambooHR, you can! And all without adding complexity to your workflow. BambooHR integrates with several leading time clock systems, allowing your team to clock in and out at the start and end of their shifts. All time data flows directly into BambooHR—no manual entry, no extra steps.

Some integrated time clock services include:

Time off policies

In BambooHR, you can create as many accrual time off policies as you need. Under Time Off Settings, create customized time off policies, add new time off categories, define tenure milestones, and assign employees to particular policies.

As your time off policies evolve, you can review the policy edit history, giving insight into how policies have changed and how it may have affected employees.

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Payroll

Nonprofit payroll has a lot of moving parts, and to get it done right, you need a payroll solution built for flexibility. From managing grant-funded roles and stipends to syncing with your benefits providers, BambooHR ensures your payroll process is simple and accurate.

Multiple pay rates in payroll

BambooHRⓇ Payroll makes it easy to handle multiple rates per employee, so you can accurately compensate team members based on program or role type. Whether it’s a stipend, hourly rate, or premium pay for after-hours work, you can simplify payroll and stay compliant—without extra spreadsheets or manual calculations.

Custom payroll cycle data reports

Streamline reporting and vendor communication with custom payroll cycle data reports—ideal for sharing accurate information with finance teams, auditors, or board members. Especially helpful in nonprofit environments where funding streams vary and roles shift, these reports help ensure transparency, compliance, and fewer manual errors.

Custom pay cycle file feeds

BambooHR Payroll also makes it easy to get your data directly to your vendors. With custom pay cycle file feeds, BambooHR will automatically and securely send your payroll data to 401(k), workers’ compensation, HSA, and FSA vendors—helping nonprofit teams reduce admin time and stay on top of compliance.

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Performance management and development

BambooHR empowers you to create consistent growth and development opportunities for everyone at your organization. With personalized, flexible review processes, you can give your employees the feedback and support they need to succeed.

Performance review cycles

Ditch the standardized annual review, and start personalizing your performance review cycles to align with your organization's milestones and goals. Choose the review cadence, which employees should be included, and whether to use feedback or assessments.

Custom feedback and assessment questions

Get the precise performance feedback you want with custom questions for both feedback and assessment forms. You can write your own questions and have the option to remove default questions. On assessments, you can also add questions with custom rating scales.

Note: Removing default questions in BambooHR® Performance Management disables certain standard reports that track employee-manager alignment.

Learning and training integrations

Level up your training and employee enrichment by connecting your learning programs to BambooHR, allowing your data to update automatically. Popular preferred apps include:

“BambooHR Performance Management was a game-changer for our mid-size nonprofit! Transitioning staff to submit feedback online streamlined the process, saved time, and gave directors access to manage teams directly in BambooHR. I was able to focus on other tasks and it eliminated the need to send multiple email reminders and check-ins with staff.”

India Gorden | Operations Director | Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Engagement and culture

Engagement strategy is personal to your organization’s culture, and your engagement tools should be, too.

AI-powered employee satisfaction analysis

Through powerful AI analysis, Employee Satisfaction survey responses are instantly analyzed, tracking the unique trends within your workforce. Using AI, all employee comments are automatically sorted into three categories: likes, dislikes, and suggestions. From there, feedback gets broken down into deeper analysis, identifying specific sentiments and topics within your survey results.

Engagement integrations

Use BambooHR to fully capitalize on your favorite engagement tools. Sync your employee data, keep your systems running cohesively, and build your organization’s culture. Preferred engagement apps in the BambooHR Marketplace include:

Recognition and rewards integrations

Make sure your employees feel recognized with a rewards program. Rewards programs show your appreciation to employees and can help field workers feel more engaged with your mission. Introduce a new rewards system or build engagement in your current program by automatically syncing it with your BambooHR account. Below are a few popular rewards apps in the BambooHR Marketplace.

“The BambooHR feature that has saved me the most time is how customizable the platform is. We’re a small nonprofit with a ton of quirky policies and practices—BambooHR lets us work in a way that makes sense for our unique culture without sacrificing usability!”

Tammi Burnett | Director, People and Culture | Rainforest Action Network

Additional integrations

Integration platforms

Can’t find the integration you’re looking for? Don’t sweat it! BambooHR Marketplace features several integration platforms that let you connect BambooHR with any app you need.

Here are some preferred integration apps:

Identity management

Keep employee logins secure and simple with identity management apps. Below are some popular apps you can integrate with BambooHR.

Communication with Slack

The BambooHR app for Slack makes it even easier for employees to stay connected, cross-posting information like time off requests, See Who’s Out calendar, manager approvals, and Employee Community announcements.

Travel management

If you have employees that travel for work, simplify the travel planning and expense process by integrating a travel app with BambooHR. Sync employee data, coordinate travel, and track expenses. Travel integrations in the BambooHR Marketplace include:

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