Building the Volunteer Site for the 99th National FFA Convention

When the National FFA Organization comes to you for their 99th National Convention, you feel the weight of that number.

Ninety-nine years of young people in blue and gold. Ninety-nine years of agricultural education, leadership development, and community service. And this year, for the first time, some new requirements that made setting up their volunteer site more complex than ever before.

Every volunteer for the convention now has to pass a background check through Verified First. Every one of them has to sign a waiver. And every one of them has to confirm they've reviewed mandatory training materials before they can be assigned to a shift.

These aren't bureaucratic hoops. They reflect the seriousness of what FFA is doing: bringing together tens of thousands of attendees — many of them young people — and making sure every person on their volunteer team has been properly screened and prepared. Getting that right matters.

So how do you build a registration experience that enforces all of that without turning the sign-up process into an obstacle course?

Here's what we did.

We started by cloning the 2025 site. The FFA has been with TRS for years, so there was already a strong foundation: activities structured, shifts mapped, communication templates ready. Cloning gave the team a clean head start without rebuilding from scratch.

Then we added the new compliance layer.

The Verified First integration was wired directly into the registration flow. As soon as a volunteer completes their registration, they're automatically redirected to the background check portal — no email to follow up on, no extra step to remember. It happens right then, right there.

We added a required custom profile field: a checkbox where volunteers confirm they've reviewed the training materials, with the PDF link right there in the field. They can't skip it. It's part of the registration.

Waivers were configured to apply to every registrant at signup.

And one of the team's real concerns was about returning volunteers — people who've worked the FFA convention for years. Would they need to be rechecked? Yes, but Verified First tracks a volunteer's history across events, so the process is familiar and fast for anyone who's been through it before.

The 99th National FFA Convention is coming. Thousands of volunteers. New compliance infrastructure. A registration site that makes it all feel seamless.

That's the TRS approach: not just building what you asked for, but thinking through the details you didn't think to ask about — so your team isn't discovering gaps the week before your event opens.

If you're managing volunteers for a large-scale event and need background checks, waivers, and training compliance baked into your registration, let's talk.