Community Connect

Fellowship client project

Jan – May 2020

People are having difficulties finding community service opportunities and they cannot track hours efficiently.

Community Connect allows users to search for opportunities, sign up for them and communicate with organizations when they need to.

In addition, Community Connect provides a timesheet that allows users to document the hours for other things later.

Raquel Joseph - Project Manager, Engineer

Mingxi Wu (Sissi) - UX Designer & Researcher

Amir Gabal - Software Engineer

Adriana Alvarado - Software Engineer

Our goal is to create a practical product that remains free to use, allowing it to be easily accessed by both students and nonprofit community service organizations. Community Connect wants to make it easier for students to

A) apply for colleges and internships

B) find opportunities to do the community service that they love

C) decrease stress by making it easier to keep track of your own hours while easily being able to submit them

Conducted 8 in-depth user interviews

1 community organizer on their experience while using a timesheet and their observation on people trying to find community service opportunities

• “In my experience, it’s difficult to find volunteers because of the lack of digital advertising the elder coordinators do. When I was looking for opportunities myself, I remember it was extremely difficult to find interesting opportunities.”

7 students on their experience during community service opportunities searching

• “In high school, we had to do volunteering in order to graduate. We had to use a website to track our hours, and we would log hours based off of the honor system-- which of course left a lot of room for error when it came to tracking after completing the service.”

• “I recorded my hours on a paper timesheet at the center.”