A group of middle school and high school students from Harvard Westlake School in Los Angeles have developed a mobile app called ServeCity to help students more easily find and track community service opportunities that match their interests. ServeCity aims to address deficiencies in current community service tracking systems used by schools, which the students found did not reflect students' passions and involved tedious form-filling. The app will allow students to search and sign up for volunteer opportunities, schools to upload and receive completed forms from students, and organizations to receive and approve student forms electronically. The students project ServeCity will increase student volunteerism and reduce costs for schools to manage their programs.

1. A Community Service App developed by
The Gadget Girls

2.  We are “The Gadget Girls”
 School – Harvard Westlake Middle School, Los Angeles, California
 Team Members
◦ Lara Bagdasarian – 8th grade
◦ Chasia Jeffries – 8th grade
◦ Paula Lahera – 9th grade
◦ Tivoli Anneliese Nguyen – 8th grade
◦ Talia Ratnavale – 8th grade
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3.  Our school, like many others, has a community volunteering requirement
 We were excited to volunteer in our school’s community service program,
until…
 We realized our opportunities to serve
were limited and did not reflect our passions
 We were subjected to a form filling ordeal
 And we get to do it all over again next year
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4.  In 2012, volunteerism in the 16-19 age bracket was lower than the
national average – 24.7% vs. 26.5%
 The secondary education segment is large
enough to be a major player in community
volunteerism
◦ 15.8 million students
◦ 30,000 high schools
 Communities need help
◦ 1.5 million non-profit organizations serving causes and communities in the United States
 Why aren’t more teenagers and young adults involved in community
volunteerism?
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5.  The Epiphany
◦ Serving the community should stem from the volunteer’s personal passion, not an assignment
◦ The volunteer opportunity reflecting such interest should be easy to find
◦ The enrollment process should be simple and quick
◦ Interacting with peers who share the same interest can increase involvement
 The deficiencies of the current process fall into the following categories
Search
Document Experience
Management sharing
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6.  The problem begged for a mobile app
 But surely there must be an app out there…there is an app for everything
 Three apps address community volunteerism, but they…
◦ are primarily search tools
◦ do not address the needs of the student volunteer and the school
 An app is born…ServeCity, with a mission to
“Increase student volunteerism and reduce the costs
of managing volunteer programs for schools”
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7.  ServeCity will address the needs of three user groups
◦ Student volunteers (high school and middle school students)
◦ Schools
◦ Community Organizations
Value Proposition for Each User Group
Volunteer School Community Organization
• Search opportunities • Reduce time and cost of managing • Access greater pool of student
program forms volunteers
• Access and manage forms
• Track student participation • Reduce time and expense of managing
enrollment and completion forms
• Log volunteer hours
• Gain tool for messaging with highly
• Review Opportunities
targeted volunteer pool
• Communicate with peers who share
similar volunteer interests
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8.  Volunteer features
◦ Search function – finds volunteer organizations by interest area and geography and links
to website and sign-up page (uses All for Good’s API)
◦ Ability to edit forms uploaded by schools – programmed using Tiny DB
 School features
◦ Upload forms to app
◦ Receive completed student forms sorted in order of date submitted
 Volunteer organization features
◦ Receive forms from students with ability to electronically sign forms and send completed
forms back to students
 Future releases
◦ Calendar of community service opportunities
◦ Map function
◦ Notification system for reminding students of appointments and deadlines
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11.  Become the market standard for schools and students to manage their community
volunteer programs and experience
 Build recurring revenue streams
Well defined user profile
will attract significant ad
dollars Ad revenue Annual fees from schools for
using the app as their main tool
in managing community
volunteer programs; significant
efficiencies in program
administration and increased
student satisfaction will yield
Fees charged to Revenue high ROI
volunteer organization
for accessing pool of Streams
student volunteers
with interests in
relevant service sector List access fees License fees
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12.  Number of users 12 months after launch
◦ 50 schools
◦ 5,000 students (100 students per school)
 Unit revenue
◦ $50 per school for year one (introductory rate, increasing to $100 in year two)
◦ $2.50 in ad revenue per 1,000 impressions (40 impressions per student per year; 5,000 students in Year 1)
 Total revenue potential run rate in year one - $3,000 ($2,500 in school fees, plus $500 in ad revenue)
 Significant increase in adoption rate per existing school expected in Year 2
 Dedicated marketing and advertising effort with Year 1 Year 2
a goal of enrolling 200 schools in year two,
Schools signed in year 50 150
and student users climbing to 200 per school Total schools 50 200
across all participating schools, for a total of Annual fee/school – Year 1 - $ 50
Annual fee/school – Year 2 - $100
40,000 registered students Fee revenue $2,500 $12,500
Registered Users 5,000 40,000
# logins /student/yr 40 40
Total impressions 0.2 M 1.6 M
Ad $ per 1,000 impressions $2.50 $2.50
Ad revenue $500 $4,000
Total Revenue $3,000 $16,500
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13. • Complete Beta version - August 2013
• Launch app at Harvard Westlake – October 2013
Limited • Make changes based on initial feedback
Release
• Promote app to more schools in the Los Angeles area – January 2014
• Begin selling ad space to targeted vendors – March 2014
Regional • Start selling annual licenses to schools – March 2014
Release
• Commit ad dollars to grow the adoption of the app – March 2014
Full • Hire ad sales agency to generate more ad revenue – May 2014
Release
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Lopez, Mark Hugo, and Karlo Barrios Marcelo. "Volunteering among Young People." CIRCLE. Last
modified 2010. Accessed April 13, 2013.
http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/FactSheets/FS07_Volunteering.pdf.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Volunteering in the United States, 2012." Bureau of Labor
Statistics. Accessed April 5, 2013. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.nr0.html.
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