ServUS

Bringing together ServUS minded individuals to solve the world's biggest problems. 

With there being 16 million college students in the United States that accounts for a great potential of good that can be done if each student that wanted to give back, organize and harness their inner changemaker were able to do so. In addition, Nonprofits lacking a solid sustained volunteer force leads to them not being able to do put on the programming and complete the efforts they want to accomplish in their communities. Merely using social media is often not enough to reach volunteers who are going to stay involved long term and college students coming into new communities often do not know how to best support communities they are new in and face barriers to getting involved such as transportation, lack of knowledge and expertise, and more.

ServUS Volunteering is a web application and movement founded in Columbus Ohio dedicated to connecting students to service opportunities in their college communities and elevating the social good of local nonprofits. ServUS aims to join passionate university students with socially innovative projects at nonprofits to empower and foster youth as they lead the way towards a sustainable future by amplifying the social good of local nonprofits. We seek to do this by proactively recruiting and sustaining volunteers through incentives, career development opportunities and networking features while equipping the next generation with the tools they need to make an impact. We offer the ServUS platform to students for free to act as a hub of social innovation and hope to offer grants to local nonprofits in the future to help further their missions and reach.

We seek to become a hub for student organizing, activism, volunteering and social change by connecting minds to missions while breaking down barriers to volunteering such as alleviating transportation cost through travel vouchers and fostering meaningful service through our matching system based on the UN sustainable development goals that will help us empower students to achieve a better more sustainable future for all. 

Our solution is centered on catering to student desires to enact change and amplify social good by giving them the professional development, community resources and social hub to advocate, organize and elevate social change by revolutionizing how we serve and how we network in nonprofit and community organizing spaces. We want to become the central hub in which movements are started, changemakers connect and students and nonprofits organizations collaborate to expand their horizons on what can be possible.  Service has been majorly stagnant across the United States with students trying to meet school requirements for volunteering without connecting or understanding the nuances, impact and importance of supporting one’s community. We want to disrupt the old ideas of service being a disengaging means to meet a requirement. Through ServUS volunteering becomes actionable, social, developmental and a jump off point into careers, experiences and connections that turns passive volunteering into actionable changemaking.

A safe way to develop career projects and developmental skills, practice networking and build confidence is through volunteering that allows students to connect with different industries that interest them. This allows students to try out opportunities and explore potential careers in an atmosphere that encourages learning. The solution to this year's challenge I pose is ServUS, a student platform that focuses on career development and networking to fill the professional development gap we see in school systems. In addition, it also partners with local nonprofits to help expose students to various volunteer opportunities in their communities to build confidence in themselves that they can use moving forward in their academic and professional development careers. This creates a network of mentors in students' lives that they can future connect with for recommendations and guidance. 

Students' transition into college often includes moving into communities with unique social structures and issues, creating a divide between the local community and student body. Many students lack the knowledge to understand how they can engage in service that is meaningful for them and beneficial to the community. Furthermore, Local nonprofits surveyed have shown to struggle with maintaining a sustainable resource of volunteers. There is also no clear platform where nonprofits and student activists can collaborate and network on projects to increase social good and magnify the impact of student activists and local organizations. 

ServUS seeks to fulfill the gaps between these two entities while breaking down the barriers to volunteering. Our approach is different because we incentivize volunteers through our local community partners by providing food vouchers and discounts to students for continued volunteering while offering transportation resources, prioritizing accessibility to make sure all students can serve, and providing career development to accelerate students post volunteering into careers through paid internships and jobs with our partners to dismantle obstacles to serve. 

We hope to expand our product to other Ohio university schools to integrate with their community engagement and service offices before we expand ServUS to universities across the United States. By forging partnerships with administrations we hope to foster a complimentary system that both promotes community engagement and simplifies the process of students creating and partaking in social impact projects on campus. Not every student has the opportunity and guidance to pursue career readiness but through ServUS they can harness their inner changemaker while making strides to prepare them for their professional journey and serving communities in need.

Our team features 3 members with 10+ years of experience founding and managing nonprofits and companies. 2 have been presidents of Ohio State’s largest Service organization program Pay it Forward and 5 of the 10 members are on the boards of nonprofits. In addition, our CEO is both an Eminence and Stamps scholar, two of the most prestigious service and innovative driven full scholarship programs offered at universities. In addition to being named to Cornell's Life Changing Labs 21 under 21, President's Buckeye Accelerator inaugural winner, Stanford University mental health researcher, 1 of 25 Taco Bell and Ashoka Ambition Accelerator Changemakers, and youngest NextUp Columbus Awardee.

Our head of engagement and media is a community leader who is 1 of 25 young female trailblazers featured in Malala Yousafzai's Harper Collin's Anthology where she shares her experiences in community work, 1 of 5 national mentors for Essence Magazine's Disney Dreamers Academy, Obama Foundation Community Leader where she championed mental health accessibility, Chegg Global Changemaker and an inaugural Estee Lauder and Vital Voices Visionary. As a native Chicagoan from the south side she has seen many interventions attempt to support inner city communities and youth but due to the lack of proper volunteer support or lack of knowledge on how to best support vulnerable populations, have failed in reaching the lasting impact they want to have. Having completed over 1,000 community service hours, garnering a gold presidential service award and dedicating so much of her early life to service she has first hand experience on the impact of volunteering.

Our ultimate goal is to place community-oriented work at the forefront of people’s minds as they pursue their education, career, and life-decisions and we envision a world where each generation is equipped with skills to deal with the societal issues of their time. As of 2022, this means we strive to support students at the forefront of the climate crisis. Our customers include Non Profits, Social Enterprises, and Universities and our users are university students. This includes 600 million college students, over 663K service organizations and Universities worldwide. Universities buy access to ServUS for their students and nonprofits buy access to utilize ServUS as a mechanism to obtain volunteers. We surveyed nearly 200 students and were able to find that 77% of incoming freshman want to help other when coming to university through service however only 26% end up actually doing so in college. Furthermore, we were able to breakdown our growth based on universities obtained accounting for securing the flagship university of each state as a success marker. Widely used career development platforms such as LinkedIn or Handshake do not incentivize students to engage with service organizations, and do not offer innovation in the volunteer space. We have founded three guiding principals to support the population we wish to serve as we develop our platform: 

1. Collective responsibility: Our work enables community change makers to do their job with more efficiency. This has a ripple effect on the cities, countries, and world in which we live in. 

2. Uplift Others: At ServUS, no one person is ‘smarter’ or more ‘qualified’ than the other. We each have a purpose that is equally instrumental in the progress of our company. We must amplify each other's voices, ideas, and dreams. 

3. Serve others first. We must live what we preach. Each update to our website, additional partner, or new policy must stem from a tangible need within our respective communities. 

ServUS is transforming the college experience by connecting students to socially innovative projects at nonprofits, breaking down the barriers to service through transportation support and equipping students with the tools they need to create community impact to ultimately improve student wellness and build translational skills that the world needs for a sustainable 2050. Most service applications track volunteer hours or serve as just a directory of volunteers, however, service goes beyond that by offering data analytics, an advanced matching system, directory, networking hubs, impact reports via UN SDGs, student incentivization, university integration, long term career opportunities, and professional development.

Through the CodeLaunch software development competition we were able to develop our platform to begin our testing phase. furthermore, we have also leveraged our mentors who hold direct experience in nonprofits and professional fields (ie. Meta) who currently serve in project management and community leadership positions to help advise and inform our work. In addition, as winners of the inaugural President’s Buckeye Accelerator Award, Ohio State University allowed us to pilot our volunteer platform at their welcome week events this fall. After amassing our first group of students to utilize our platform we now plan to measure success based on student and nonprofit usage of and outcomes. 

We not only serve to connect and inspire students to commit to social good but also serve as a means to track volunteering across different organizations allowing us to see the total impact of students and universities as a whole. If through our longitudinal analysis we see increased numbers of students engaging in service projects and networking on our platform we will be able to quantify our success based on the increase in student service hours and efficiency of nonprofit projects. 

The goals that we have going into 2023 includes garnering as much student feedback as possible to make sure students feel that ServUS is a website for them with their best interests and  goals in mind. Furthermore, we hope to connect with community engagement centers and administration at other Ohio university schools as we look to expand in Ohio before moving to new states. Finally, we want to increase our funding to help further refine our product, increase incentives and scale our initiative to reach a wider audience of schools including reaching Historically Black Colleges, integrating ambassador programs, and funding our grant initiative for local students looking to good.

ServUS is powered by our our online platform that uniquely turns students into a mobilized stream of change agents. Currently we are functioning as a website but hope to expand to an app store application that allows ServUS to be more convenient for our users. Where we truly shine is through our matching system that functions in matching students based on behaviors, personality and drive to mach them to opportunities that will allow them to thrive and make change.

When we tested ServUS last fall we partnered with The Ohio State University's Pay it Forward student cohort and the Office of Service and Leadership to pilot our program at their large days of service that attracts hundreds of students across the campus. As a result we had nearly 700 students utilizing our platform and being affected by the work we do. However, once we are ready to fully launch come august of 2023 at Ohio State which has a student body of 50,000 students we hope to capture those new to campus including freshman and sophomore to bring in 20,000+ users. 

We are faced with an Initial high marketing costs as entering a new university market requires extensive outreach to establish the network effect. Furthermore training poses a barrier because ServUS aims to identify student leaders on college campuses and train them to join our community and work with their local nonprofits. This requires staff to dedicate time and oversight. Finally Customer Acceptance and Brand Recognition is also going to be a large barrier going into the next year. To implement ServUS effectively, it must be integrated into the university experience. This requires a deep understanding or connections within the school.

However, we are already working on solutions. For high marketing costs we know it will reduce as students utilize the service and recommend it to others. As we expand to more markets, a deeper understanding allows for targeted ads. For training we hope to create training modules or virtual classes that ease bringing new ambassadors to local campuses. Furthermore, once trained, student leaders can train future classes. Finally, to combat brand recognition each additional university onboarded, a process begins to develop for integrating ServUS in orientations and service departments. Furthermore, as the network grows - brand recognition is more widely adopted. 

The Ohio State University

ServUS Volunteering is a web application and movement founded in Columbus Ohio dedicated to connecting students to service opportunities in their college communities and elevating the social good of local small nonprofits. These connections not only foster community among student bodies and their cities but also lend to professional development opportunities. ServUS is transforming the college experience by connecting students to socially innovative projects at nonprofits, breaking down the barriers to service through transportation support and equipping students with the tools they need to create community impact to ultimately improve student wellness and build translational skills that the world needs for a sustainable 2050. 

ServUS is more than a volunteer management system like Besa, one of our competitors, we include social enterprises and give longer term opportunities that align students with their purpose. We also organize impact for universities and service organizations according to the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals, giving people a way to visualize how their time is impacting their community and world. We also allow service organizations to collaborate with one another, and with students because we recognize that together we can achieve more.The minimum base amount for ServUs to operate is just over $100,000. However, we were fortunate enough to be one of six winners, out of 100+ team submissions, of the inaugural President's Buckeye Accelerator where we won $50,000 to run servus 1.0 at The Ohio State University in the fall. As a result we are halfway to our goal of raising the revenue needed to fully see all parts of our company thrive and execute our plans for in person professional development, Networking hub integration and grant giving. ServUS is poised to fill a niche in the market for a company that goes beyond just organizing service efforts or tracking service hours. Through our multilevel approach to increasing service and in turn restoring nonprofits' impact potential we are helping grow social impact and integrate a greater work force of volunteers. 

We have already raised over $50,000 in funding as inaugural winners of the President's Buckeye Accelerator and as top 25 semi finalist for the Taco Bell Ambition Accelerator. We hope to continue to compete in compeitions to raise funds for ServUS while we work to secure university and nonprofit buyers. Universities will pay from $5,000-20,000 per year and service nonprofits will pay $10-150 per month for access to our advanced data and marketing integrated features which is scaled based on the size of their nonprofit. Incentives such as ride shares will reduce barriers, and food items will increase engagement, continuously mobilizing students to service organizations. 

The revenue potential for our business if we were to capture every service organization and university small and large is 484 million. Beyond these revenue measures we have the unique ability to activate a worldwide volunteer force of 600 million college students. If we only consider the national level, this workforce is worth 5 billion dollars. Already an incredible value, ServUS wants to triple the social impact number by reducing barriers to service and by making volunteering more attractive. This affects our revenue model. By creating even 5% more service oriented students in the US, our existing revenue will increase by 6 million dollars. We believe by better matching students to the meaningful work they seek and helping universities support them, we can create value out of student time.