What organizations can give volunteering hours that schools will accept?

Answered

Hey @HermioneG,

This is a great question and one I'm going to try my best to answer. I'm not able to find a definitive answer for this but based on everything I've read I'm confident enough to at least provide some advice. The short and simple answer to your question is, I don't see a reason why you wouldn't be able to offer volunteering hours. As long as you have a legitimate mission, know how the volunteers will be able to help out your cause, and have a way to track the hours I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem. You may have seen this already but if not maybe check out this site as it seems like it could be useful in getting started: https://www.galaxydigital.com/blog/how-to-start-a-volunteer-program/.

But remember, and I think this is important, just because you can potential give service hours doesn't necessarily mean an admissions officer is going to view those hours with the same weight as service hours from another organization. I'm not trying to discourage you, I think what you're doing is awesome, but I think it's important you understand this is a possibility. It's just speculation on my part but if I was an admissions officer I probably would give more weight to someone who has 100s of service hours from well-known, well-respected, organizations where the person granting the hours had a high position or long tenure over someone who had 100s of service hours from a newly formed non-profit and where the person granting hours is a high school student. 100s of service hours is impressive in either scenario but one would raise more red flags for me than the other. Again, this is just speculation.

I'd love to learn more about your organization and what your goals for it are, I might be able to provide some more thoughts. Happy to answer follow-up questions you might have or clarify anything for you as well.