For nonprofits

What it costs, and what free means

$0. There are no membership fees, listing fees, per-volunteer fees or paid tiers.

Support Serve is funded by gifts from supporters. We commit that we will not charge nonprofits or volunteers for the service. If funding runs low, we will say so openly and may slow new features, but the core matching service will not be put behind a paywall. You will not be asked to pay to keep your account or your data.

How approval works

1. Register. Sign in, choose nonprofit, and fill in your organization profile: mission, contact email, location and the causes you serve.
2. Show who you are. Give a website, a registration number, or both.
3. We review. A person reads every application. We aim to respond within 3 business days.
4. You hear from us. You get a notification and an email. If we need more information, we say exactly what.
5. Post projects. Once approved, you can post projects and invite volunteers.

What to prepare

• A working website or public page (social pages are fine for small groups), and/or
• A registration number: a US EIN, a charity number from your country, or a letter from your fiscal sponsor. For a US EIN we check public IRS records, and approved organizations that match are marked as listed by the IRS.
• A short description of your mission and who you serve.

Organizations outside the United States and groups with a fiscal sponsor are welcome.

While your application is pending

You can complete your profile and invite teammates. Posting projects unlocks when you are approved.

If we decline an application and you think we got it wrong, write to hello@supportserve.org and a second person will look at it.

How volunteers are handled

Volunteers describe their own skills and availability. Support Serve does not vet, interview or background-check volunteers. A volunteer profile tells you what the person says about themselves, nothing more.

Your nonprofit owns screening. You decide who to accept, what to ask them, and what they may do for you.

Safety and screening checklist

Before you accept someone, think through the points below. This is guidance, not legal advice.

• Talk with the volunteer first, by video or in a public place, before any private or one-to-one work.
• Check references or past work when the role involves money, data, or access to your systems.
• Minors. Volunteers must be 18 or older unless your nonprofit explicitly accepts younger volunteers and obtains guardian consent. If you work with minors, follow your local child-safeguarding rules and avoid unsupervised one-to-one contact.
• Vulnerable populations. If volunteers will work with children, older adults, people with disabilities or others who are at risk, use background checks, training and supervision that match local law and your own policies.
• Background-check flag. When you create a project you can mark that a background check is required. The flag is shown to volunteers up front. It tells people what you will ask for. Support Serve does not run the checks; you do.
• Do not collect more personal information than you need, and do not ask volunteers to send money.
• Give clear onsite rules, a named contact, and a way to stop at any time.
• Report anything concerning with the "Report" button on a project (it needs a free account), or email hello@supportserve.org.

Liability

Your nonprofit is responsible for the safety, training, supervision and insurance of its own volunteer activities. Read our Terms of use for how responsibility is split between you, volunteers and Support Serve.

Staying in control

• Removing a volunteer. You can change any applicant's status to declined from your project's applicant list, including someone you accepted earlier. Tell the volunteer directly as well. To report someone for misconduct, email us and we will review their account.
• Exporting your data. You can download your confirmed hours and applicants as CSV files from the Reports page, and a project's applicants from its manage page.
• Leaving. You can close your projects and delete your organization at any time. Deleting it also removes the confirmed hours volunteers logged with your organization, and those volunteers are told. See the Privacy page for what is removed.