Activities & Organizations

Leadership & Service

Community Connection

Community Connection is an online database of volunteer projects and community organizations who are actively seeking OSU student volunteers.  Follow the directions below to search and sign up for volunteer projects, learn how to track your hours, and create a personalized Service Portfolio as a record of your volunteer work.

To sign up for a Volunteer Service Opportunity:

Sign up for Community Commitment through the Community Connection website:

1.      From the homepage, click on “Students.”

2.      Click on the “Find and Register to Volunteer at an Organization” link.

3.     Search for opportunities by agency, keyword, category, campus, and/or date.

4.     From the opportunities that match your search criteria, choose one and click on “Learn more about this opportunity.”

5.     Scroll down the page and click “Sign Up” for this opportunity.

6.     A screen will prompt you to enter your OSU UserID (i.e. smith.123) and Password.

7.     If your selected opportunity has an additional guideline form, you will see it here and must agree to the guidelines before proceeding to the sign up step.

8.     The “Opportunity Sign Up” page will list the opportunity at the top, and has links to see all of your commitments, get course credit or affiliate your volunteer hours with a student organization, and update your personal information.

9.     Click on “Confirm” where you will receive information about how to contact the agency. Once you click confirm, both you and they are sent an email confirming your commitment.

10. Print the page for your records.

11. Be sure to contact the agency coordinator to finalize your work schedule.

To Log Your Hours:

After you have completed your service hours:

1.     From the homepage, click on “Students.”

2.     On the left toolbar, click on “Log Hours and Update Personal Information.”

3.     From this page, you have three options:

a.     Log your hours – which allows you to enter the date, number of hours worked, and comment of your work.

b.      Edit your student group and service learning course affiliations – which allows you to link your service to a course or give credit for your service to a student organization that you belong to. (To allow your instructor or your student organization leader to track your hours, you MUST associate yourself with a course or an organization.)

c.      Edit your address and phone number  – which allows the organization you are volunteering at to contact you for changes or emergency needs.

4.     From the “Log your Hours” page, you can view all of the volunteer opportunities for which you have signed up.

5.     Scroll down the page to enter the date and hours you worked at each site. The start date and end date may be the same date if you performed service on one day, or if you need to track your hours daily. Alternatively, you can post total hours for a week or longer.

6.     Enter a comment for each entry if you would like.

7.     Wait for your supervisor to approve those hours. If they don’t approve the hours in a timely manner, check back with them to do so.

To Create a Personalized Service Portfolio: 

1.     From the homepage, click on “Students”

2.     Click on “Print Portfolio of your Service Experiences”

3.     Interact with the page to make sure your name and contact information are correct, and then select whether or not you would like the individual service opportunities to appear on your final printout.

a.     If an opportunity doesn’t show up, be sure you have registered for the opportunity and logged hours. The system only recognizes hours that have been registered (signed up for).

b.     If some of your hours are not verified, contact the appropriate service supervisor to approve the hours.

4.     Click on “Print my Portfolio”

5.     You will download a printable file of your portfolio. Verify that it is correct, and print it out!

Contact Us!

Questions about using Community Connection?  Contact us at communityconnection@osu.edu.