Plain definitions for the terms used across Hineni and volunteer screening

Hineni is volunteer management software for synagogues, churches and community organizations. Members find volunteer work from a QR code or link with no app or account, and every sign-up goes to a named lay leader who owns the follow-up. Hineni was built by lay leaders at Temple Beth El of Boca Raton, Florida.

The name is Hebrew for "Here I am" (הִנֵּנִי), the answer Abraham, Moses and Samuel each give when they are called. Hayden Trepeck and William Haas Evans built it.

A circle is a small group organized around a topic, concern or cause, such as a caring committee or a study group, and in Hineni it can own volunteer work. Work a circle offers only to its own members publishes directly. Work offered to the whole congregation waits for staff review before it appears, so staff keep sight of congregation-wide needs.

A lay leader is a volunteer who leads part of an organization's work without being on staff, such as a committee chair or the president of an auxiliary group. In Hineni, each sign-up goes to a named lay leader who owns the follow-up: they reach out, record each attempt and reply, and see the request through to an outcome. A lay leader sees only the people and roles in their own area.

Pending clearance is the status a sign-up carries while a check that the role requires is running. The volunteer keeps their place in the role, and scheduling for it unlocks when they clear. In the meantime, the organization can offer them roles with no child contact and no driving. Lay leaders see only the status, and the details of the check stay with the organization's designated screener.

A Level 2 check is Florida's fingerprint-based search of state and national criminal history records. Prints are taken at a Live Scan site and checked by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Section 943.0438 of the Florida Statutes requires it for coaches and referees in youth athletic programs. The fixed fees listed by the state clearinghouse in April 2025 total $60, plus the site's own fee. Hineni guides volunteers through each step.

Live Scan is the electronic fingerprinting used for Florida Level 2 checks. The volunteer books an appointment at a compliant site, where fingerprints and a photo are captured digitally and sent to FDLE, which forwards them to the FBI. Florida has more than 2,000 compliant Live Scan locations, according to the state clearinghouse. Each site charges its own fee on top of the state and federal fees. Hineni links volunteers to a nearby compliant site.

The Volunteer and Employee Criminal History System (VECHS) is the FDLE program that lets qualified organizations screen volunteers and employees through state and national fingerprint checks. It operates under section 943.0542 of the Florida Statutes. An organization qualifies if it provides care, treatment, education, supervision or recreation to children, older adults or people with disabilities, even as a limited part of its work. Results go to the organization alone. For a congregation, joining VECHS is a choice.

The Care Provider Background Screening Clearinghouse is a statewide record of Level 2 screenings run by the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) under section 435.12 of the Florida Statutes. Volunteer fingerprints move into it from 1 January 2026, or a later date AHCA sets. It shares results among listed schools and agencies on a five-year cycle, so a person screened recently may be reviewed without new prints. Each congregation should confirm with AHCA whether it can use that review.

A motor vehicle record (MVR) is a report of a person's driving history drawn from state records. Organizations order one through a consumer reporting agency, with the driver's consent, before a volunteer drives other people. Checkr lists an MVR add-on at $9.50, plus the state's record fee. Because the report comes from a consumer reporting agency, federal consumer reporting rules likely apply. An MVR review is one of the three parts of Hineni's driver clearance.

10DLC stands for 10-digit long code, the standard US phone number format that organizations use to send texts from an application to a person. US carriers require the sender to register a brand and a messaging campaign before texts go out over these numbers, and nonprofits register under their own company type. Carriers filter texts from unregistered senders. Hineni sends texts only from a registered number.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international standard for accessible websites and apps, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Version 2.2 added criteria for sign-in, tap target size and repeated entry, which bear directly on forms like Hineni's. Level AA is the conformance level most organizations aim for. Hineni is designed to meet WCAG 2.2 at level AA.