For Community Partners

Before collaborating with the Office of Service Learning or the Center for Community Engagement, it is important to understand the variety of partnerships available to our students and your organization.

Volunteerism

Volunteers can be well suited for either one-time or ongoing project requests that cannot be met by a service-learning course or existing program. Traditional volunteer requests include assistance with event setup or breakdown, agency-based tutoring, preparing meals, or gardening.

Service Learning

Service learning is an academic credit-bearing opportunity that connects classroom instruction with experiential service that both meets a community need and connects to the students’ course content. Examples of this type of partnership include students tutoring in Bibb County schools through the Read United program, while enrolled in the INT 201: Building Community course or Law and Public Policy students participating in the Inside Out Prison Exchange program.

Partnering with a service learning course is best suited for long-term projects that can be completed over the course of a semester.

Community-based Research

It is also possible to work with faculty on a community-based research project. Community-based research allows students and faculty to meet a need of your organization while also fulfilling academic objectives through engaged research. At Mercer this is called Research that Reaches Out and is part of the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan. Find out more here.

Internships

Internships may be paid or unpaid and are designed to provide students with work experience related to their major field of studies. Advertise available internships on Mercer’s Center for Career and Professional Development portal, Handshake, by clicking here.

The Center for Community Engagement welcomes service requests from community partners seeking individual or group volunteers for one-time or ongoing projects that may not be met by service-learning courses or existing enter for Community Engagement programs and events. All volunteer requests are posted on the University’s engagement platform, BearPulse (powered by GivePulse). For information about how your organization can post on BearPulse, see the BearPulse page on this website.

Volunteer requests might broadly address ongoing needs such as tutoring or mentoring, serving meals to the hungry, or teaching English as a second language. Other requests might focus on one-time events, such as a neighborhood cleanups, Easter egg hunts, planting a garden, or planning an event for elderly residents of a nursing home.

The Center for Community Engagement does not guarantee a student response, but will work to promote your need. Students are then responsible for contacting any partner with whom they would like to work.

Please consider the following when making a volunteer request:

• The best time for your non-profit organization to submit a request is prior to the start of a given semester.
• If students will require training from your organization, please make sure to note that in your BearPulse event description.
• Volunteer requests should be submitted at least 2-3 weeks prior to the service event date(s).
• Students will contact organizations directly so the organization may monitor how a specific need is met.
• It is helpful to keep a list of responding students handy to contact directly in the future should needs arise.
• Individual organizations, not Mercer University or the Center for Community Engagement, are responsible for volunteer insurance.
• Requests must be agency-based. The Center for Community Engagement will not post requests for individual needs in the home, such as caretakers, drivers, or private tutors.

To remain nonpartisan and in compliance with the University’s guidelines on Civic Engagement, requests for volunteers for political affiliations will not be announced.

Three-to-six weeks before an event (or events), determine the specific need, including dates, times, and number of volunteers required. Be sure to clearly define the responsibilities of the volunteer and determine a date by which you need a response.

Volunteer requests should be posted to BearPulse (powered by GivePulse), Mercer’s volunteer management platform. For help with BearPulse or more information on getting your organization connected, see the BearPulse page on this website.