January 1, 2024
GivePulse & Ohio University: Overview
Welcome to the first article in a series designed to help campus and community stakeholders in Southeast Ohio and beyond understand and utilize GivePulse to engage with Ohio University and our communities. The Center for Community Engagement will post articles exploring how our students, staff, faculty and community can get the most out of the GivePulse platform.
GivePulse 101: What does it do?
GivePulse is a social network that helps people and organizations connect, coordinate, and track their local community engagement efforts.
GivePulse is a third-party company with the mission to “enable everyone in the world to participate and become engaged in lifting their community to new heights. We do so by providing a platform for anyone to list, find and organize and measure social impact initiatives in the community. It starts with one individual to build an army to help improve the world."
For nonprofits and community organizations, the basic subscription is free and offers robust volunteer and donor management capabilities. By “affiliating” your organization's account with Ohio University’s account within the network, any events, opportunities, fundraisers, etc. that you post to your page will automatically be cross-posted into Ohio University’s listing for students, staff, and faculty to find, as well as available to the general public .
Who is it for? GivePulse is broadly accessible for volunteers in OHIO's student body, as well as the general community to find and register for events, or leverage GivePulse to recruit volunteers and manage events that they're organizing.
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Volunteers – OU students, staff, faculty & Community members
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Donors
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Nonprofits
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Community/Civic associations
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Student Organizations
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Campus Units
For volunteers, GivePulse allows you to:
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Find the local events, organizations, and issues that most interest you: Search for organizations or opportunities to get involved at ohio.givepulse.com! Use the search filters to filter by zipcode , causes, event type, and more. Sign-up for events, then use your personal user dashboard to centrally manage and reflect on your experiences.
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Track your impact and verify service hours: Make sure to ‘Add your Impact’ to reflect on your experiences, give feedback to event organizers, and request verification of your volunteer hours.
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Review, reflect, and share: Use GivePulse as your main platform to track reflections, hours, donations, and impact and share your verified service hours with your organization(s) all in one location.
For Nonprofits and Community Organizations, GivePulse allows
you to:
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Coordinate, manage and share events and opportunities to a wide network:Leverage GivePulse as a one-stop shop for volunteer and donor engagement with the general public as well as the Ohio University network. Community partners also have the option of submitting one-off events to OU’s page to engage our students as well.
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Recruit volunteers:Coordinate single day service projects or manage more complex volunteer schedules with shifts or recurring commitments. Communicate with your volunteers and track registrations and outcomes all in one place.
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Manage fundraisers and Peer-to-Peer campaigns:Promote fundraisers and leverage your networks in powerful peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns.
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Build your community:Grow your user database as your volunteers and donors engage with you via the platform and leverage GivePulse’s data collection and communications tools to continue to engage with them over time.
For Student Organizations, GivePulse allows you to:
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Coordinate, manage and share events within your group or a wide network: GivePulse integrates with Bobcat Connect to enable student organizations to leverage the robust volunteer coordination and participation tracking tools within the system to mobilize your organization and track service hours.
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Find and partner with community organizations: Search for organizations in OU’s network who’s mission aligns with your organization and get in touch! GivePulse also allows you to ‘promote’ existing fundraisers, events and service opportunities posted by nonprofit partners to your members directly to coordinate group activities aligned with the needs of local communities.
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Build your community: Promote your events widely across OU’s network to attract new members and partners, and leverage GivePulse’s data collection and communications tools to continue to engage with them over time.
For Faculty & Staff, GivePulse allows you to:
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Coordinate and manage Service-Learning Courses and curricular engagement: GivePulse integrates with Blackboard (and Canvas) as well as other OHIO data systems in a way that allows instructors to mirror their courses inside the platform and utilize GivePulse’s functionality for coordination and assessment in partnership with external community organizations.
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Facilitate events, workshops, internship placements, or volunteer opportunities and track and assess outcomes: GivePulse is a tool Ohio University stakeholders can use to manage a variety of programs that involve opportunity-matching and require further coordination with internal and external partners as well as tracking and assessment.
Want to learn more? Follow this blog series for more tips and tricks!And, The Center for Community Engagement can help you navigate the platform for the first time, and strategize how it could best support the needs of your organization or unit: Schedule a Tutorial