Phoenix Serve

Phoenix Serve is Elon’s community engagement platform connected with Phoenix Connect.  Phoenix Serve connects students, staff, and faculty with service opportunities on-campus and with our Alamance County community partners and beyond.  Utilize the platform to create service opportunities, find service opportunities, to validate service hours, and track your impact. Hours submitted via Phoenix Serve are verified by system administrators and/or community partners and end up on your Elon Experiences Transcript.

Phoenix Serve is available for the campus community to use and is managed by the Kernodle Center for Civic Life.

Click here to access Phoenix Serve

Note: You login with your Elon username and password.

Before submitting service hours, check out the What Counts As Service overview document so you know what counts as service at Elon.

How do I get started?

All you need to do is claim your account and complete your profile. All Elon students, staff, and faculty already have an account made for them.

In order to claim the account, visit our site. In the top right-hand corner select “Log-in”. In the pop-up menu select “Log-in via Elon”. Once you have logged in, select “Account” in the dropdown menu under your name. From here you should be able to fill out your personal information including the causes you care about and the skills you have. Filling out your profile information help groups find you for events that you may have the skills for or might be interested in.

To learn more information about how to get started, watch this video.

How do I submit service hours?

There are a few ways to submit your service hours (also know as your impacts on Phoenix Serve):

  • If you have already registered for an event, you will receive an email notification following the event to confirm your hours, which will then be verified by a page administrator. You can double check events or shifts you are registered for by selecting “My Activity” from the menu and clicking on “Registrations”.
  • If you are adding an impact/service hours for an event you have not registered for or for service that you have done independently, select “Add Impact” at the top of the home page for the group you are doing service with. You will then be asked where you created an impact.

For additional information, see our Adding Service Hours Guide.

Additional Things to Keep in Mind:

  • Validating service hours falls under Elon’s Honor Code. Only record hours for legitimate service activities. See the “What Counts As Service” document above for guidance.
  • Round to the nearest half hour (1 hours, 1.5 hours, 2 hours, etc.)
  • Your service hours will show up on your Elon Experiences Transcript.

How do I make sure service hours count for an organization that I am in?

If you want your hours to count for an organization you are already in (like a sorority or fraternity) or department you are affiliated with, make sure to also select them from the share with section when adding a service impact.  If you don’t share it, it will not count towards that organization.

If you are already part of a group (sororities or fraternities typically want to know about this option to count hours done independently towards required hours for Greek organizations), you can automatically share your service hours with groups you are members of already.  In order to do this, follow these steps:

  • Once logged into Phoenix Serve, click the “My Groups” tab and find the group you would like to share hours with from the list
  • Look for the arrow to the right of the group you want to share hours with.  Click on the arrow next to the group and select “More Options”
  • Check the box next to “Always Share Impacts” and then from here on, when you go to verify your service hours after a volunteer experience, this group will automatically be selected.  Note: If you do not want certain hours to count for a group you pre-selected, you can deselect that group manually before verify your service impact/hours.

Click here for additional information if you have further questions about how to share your impacts/service hours.

I want to volunteer - how do I find service opportunities?

If you are looking to get involved in service at Elon, this platform will help you find available opportunities.  When logged in, click the Get Involved tab on the top right of the screen to learn more about current service opportunities.

If you are interested in a particular type of service opportunity or issue area (for example: animals, children, the environment, health, etc.) you can search for those within the Get Involved tab.

You can also browse subgroups and community partners to find more about on and off campus organizations and opportunities.

How do I create and manage an event?

Posting events is one of the primary ways Elon users will utilize Phoenix Serve.  Click here to see our event creation guide.  Additionally, this video also walks users through step by step how to create an event as well.

Click here to see expanded information about utilizing different features for events.

If you would like support on creating your own event, email the Kernodle Center’s Service Ambassadors at ambassadors@elon.edu.

If I am a group administrator - how do I manage my page?

The group dashboard is the primary page for your group. You will use this page to update the profile for your group, as well as see your users, create and manage events, and manage impacts.

Your group roster is locked and correspond with your roster on Phoenix Connect. In order to be able to add members to your Phoenix Serve page, you will need to first add them to your Phoenix Connect roster, and they will be synced automatically shortly after.

On your group dashboard edit group page, you have the ability to update, add, or edit the following information:

  • Basic info tab: the description of your group (we recommend having the same description that you have on your Phoenix Connect page for consistency)
  • Logo tab: your organization logo (if you have one) and cover photo
  • Causes: types of causes that work directly with or support
  • Sustainable Development Goals: identify goals of your group that intersect with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals
  • Social: link to other platforms you utilize (for your website, we recommend linking to your Phoenix Connect page)

Click here for additional support about managing groups.

If I am a group administrator - how do I approve and manage service hours?

If you are the administrator of a group, you will likely need to verify impacts to confirm that the information the volunteers have provided is accurate. Verifying impacts is vital to ensuring student hours end up on their Elon Experiences Transcript.

There are a few different ways to verify someone’s impacts:

  • Administrators can verify via email when they receive an email notification informing them that an impact has been made.
  • Administrators can verify via the group’s Manage Impacts page in order to dispute, bulk verify, and view the impacts. To do so, the administrator logs in to their group page, clicks the blue “Manage” button, and clicks “Impacts” > “Manage Impacts” from the left-hand menu.
    • The administrator can click the checkbox on the top row to select all, go to the “Bulk Actions” box, and then click “Verify Selected Impacts.”
    • The administrator can also go to the far-right drop down menu for each individually and choose to verify, dispute, or view the details of the impact.

When an impact is verified, the individual who made the impact is notified.  For additional information, click here.  Also, this video provides good additional insights for managing impacts for your group.

How do I use the Phoenix Serve app?

The Phoenix Serve iOS/Android app was designed and developed to cater to Volunteers, Members and Administrators. The app is supported to work on the iOS and Android devices (phones and tablets).

There are currently 2 downloadable apps in both the iTunes and Google Play store, one for individuals (volunteers or members of organizations to browse and track their engagement), and another one called GivePulse SignIn (meant for only admins or site leads to sign in individuals easily).

To download the iOS app, click here.

To download the Android app, click here.

Through the app you can search for volunteer opportunities, submit service hours, and update your personal profile. For more information about using the app, click here or check out this video.

I am a faculty member - how do I manage my class with this platform?

Phoenix Serve is a valuable tool with a handful of features that are helpful to faculty members for managing their community-based learning (formerly academic service-learning) or community-engaged course.  View our Phoenix Serve Faculty Class Management Guide for additional information.  Additionally, view this video to learn more about the platform and view basic features.

Click here to access our guide that can be shared with students for instructions on how to enter hours for their service placements through a course.  This video also walks through basic information for entering hours as well.

Click here for an extensive list of features relevant for faculty members.

I am a community partner - can I utilize this platform?

Yes! The platform is available free of cost for our community partner organizations. By having a profile, you can create volunteer opportunities that students will be able to view.  You can also utilize GivePulse as a volunteer management platform for tracking and promoting opportunities to community volunteers.

Contact Kyle Anderson in the Kernodle Center at kanderson52@elon.edu to create your own profile.  Once you create a profile, we will be in touch to offer some training on how to utilize the platform.

If you have any questions about submitting your service hours or about the platform in general, feel free to contact our Service Ambassador team at ambassadors@elon.edu or call us at 336-278-7250.