Guidelines for Tracking Service Hours Through GivePulse

Student Volunteerism and Service (SVS) encourages you to track your service hours during your time at KSU. GivePulse is the official volunteer portal for Kennesaw State University, where students can sign up for volunteer opportunities and track their hours. Before you track your service hours, please read through our Service Tracking Guidelines to familiarize yourself with what activities can and cannot be tracked through the system.

  • The SVS team defines service as a short- or long-term donation of time that promotes the common good. 
     
    While the SVS team encourages all types of volunteerism and service efforts, we can only track certain service activities through GivePulse. To help you understand what can and cannot be tracked through GivePulse, we have compiled a series of examples below. 
    • Participating in any service activity completed under the supervision of a community partner listed as an affiliate through KSU’s GivePulse page. 
    • Service completed as a part of a service trip (only hours spent doing service on the trip). 
    • Time spent doing community service with a faith-based organization, if the services are provided to the public with no faith requirement (i.e., building a home through Habitat for Humanity, assisting at a local food bank, etc.). 
    • Non-partisan political activities, such as voter registration drives or volunteering for a voting site on election day. 
     
    • Any work for which is paid (i.e., cash, gift card, etc.) or for which other compensation is received (i.e., course credit, unless the course is designated as a service-learning course). 
    • Indirect philanthropy or fundraising activities (i.e., walking/running for charity, attending a meeting to plan/organize a fundraising event, etc.).
    • Completing work for any KSU department, student organization, or athletic team, that does not directly serve a need beyond KSU’s campuses. 
    • Participating in any self-directed “projects” not under the supervision of a community organization (i.e., helping someone with yard work, baby-sitting, or tutoring). 
    • Travel time (car, train, airplane, etc.) to and from a service site, sleep on any service trip, or any time spent on an excursion during a service trip. 
    • Self-improvement experiences, including attending a conference or webinar, shadowing experiences, or professional development. 
    • Time spent collecting money or items for donation (See Other Forms of Tracking for more information about how to log this type of impact).
    • Participating in a research project either as a participant (i.e., focus group) or a researcher (i.e., lab assistant). 
    • Assisting with any partisan political activities. 
  • In addition to tracking volunteer hours, you can also track other forms of impact in GivePulse, such as donated goods or money raised. 
     
    To do this, simply change the type of impact you are making using the drop-down feature on the impact submission form. Please note, when attempting to log an amount of money donated, you will be asked to submit a copy of the receipt to verify this donation. 
     

    The Department of Student Volunteerism and Service reserves the right to have the final decision in all impact logs made through GivePulse. 
     

If you have any unanswered questions after reading this document, please feel free to reach us at ksuserves@kennesaw.edu. A member of our team will reply as soon as possible.