After your application is accepted, you may undertake volunteer activity, and log hours, which will be submitted to your Volunteer Organization for review. Upon approval, those hours will be translated into scholarship credit at a rate of $20 per hour. You may also request new Volunteer Organizations to join the platform.
After June 30th of your graduating year and assuming you have accumulated at least 25 approved volunteer hours over the course of your Altruition membership, you may submit documentation to Altruition to activate disbursement of scholarship funding, which will be undertaken between Altruition and the post-secondary school to which you have been accepted.
Yes, you may earn credit for no more than 150 volunteer hours (equal to a scholarship grant credit of $3000.00) in any one academic year. Therefore, you may earn credit for up to 450 volunteer hours (equal to a total scholarship grant credit of $9000.00) over your high school career, should you be accepted to Altruition in your grade 10 year.
Yes, to qualify for scholarship credit, you must volunteer at least 25 hours over the life of your Altruition account. Further, a minimum of 5 hours must be volunteered in any 3 month period.
Yes. You are able to submit a letter of reference attesting to your financial need that is authored or cosigned by a Volunteer Organization not currently registered with Altruition. We will review your application as well as the eligibility of the organization and contact you and/or the organization if further information is required.
Upon transfer of high schools, please update your profile to reflect the high school to which you have transferred. Only students attending public secondary schools within British Columbia are eligible to earn scholarship credit on Altruition. If you transfer to an out-of-province or private secondary school, your account will become inactive.
Students with inactive accounts are not eligible to log new hours, but you are able to use previously approved hours for scholarship funding with an eligible post-secondary school upon graduation if 25 volunteer hours were approved while the account was active.
Yes, you are able to re-apply should your application not be approved. We recommend students consider re-applying the following academic year, particularly if your financial situation changes materially over the course of the year.
Volunteer Organizations have the sole ability to accept or reject new student volunteers. Further, Altruition may limit the number of active student volunteers associated with a Volunteer Organization to encourage geographic and organizational diversity.
No. Eligible Volunteer Organization must be registered Canadian charities, not-for-profits or community support organizations which operate within British Columbia. See our Terms and Conditions for additional information on how we prioritize the VOs with which we partner.
Altruition accepts a limited number of students per intake period. When full, the application page will allow you to join a waitlist. By entering your information to the waitlist form, you will be notified when we re-open for applications.
No, however Altruition recommends that students discuss with their parents which volunteer organizations they wish to join.
The content of a student’s letter of reference is a critical aspect of the Altruition application process. The individual who authors or co-signs the letter of reference must attest that without scholarship credit (including from Altruition), the student applicant and their family are expected to face significant hurdles in funding post-secondary tuition costs.
A professional in social work or family services, a school principal or counsellor, or a representative from a volunteer organization can author or co-sign a letter of reference.
Yes. Altruition does not take into consideration citizenship, permanent residency, or other visa status when reviewing student applications and/or disbursing scholarship funds.
A student volunteer who has not logged any hours within the first 6 months from their acceptance into Altruition will have their account closed. This means that you will no longer have a valid account on Altruition and are no longer able to login to the platform. An entirely new student application must be submitted should you wish to reapply, and the application will generally be deprioritized.
While we will consider a variety of charities and community groups, applicants may not be engaged in commercial for-profit activity or religious promotion and proselytization. Generally, Altruition favours organizations assisting people in need, the environment, and the arts. Altruition places a lesser priority on organizations focused on issue-based advocacy. Altruition reserves the right to reject any application.
If you are providing or co-signing a Letter of Reference attesting to the financial need of a student applicant, please state the length of time of and the capacity in which you know the applicant.
The purpose of the letter of reference is to provide Altruition with additional insights on the level of financial need of the applicant, which is the primary determinant by which applicants are accepted. The description of financial need must include factors beyond general unaffordability, inflation and increasing tuition costs, all of which affect most families in BC.
In a maximum of one page, describe or confirm your knowledge of the student and their family’s ability to pay post-secondary education costs. We are looking for an overview of your understanding of any financial constraints or difficulties that may inhibit the applicant's ability to fulfill his or her post-secondary goals.
While there is no formal mechanism preventing volunteer organizations from re-applying to Altruition, we i) conduct a review of each new applicant to ensure its primary activities and mandate are aligned with our Terms and Conditions and ii) maintain record of all previously rejected volunteer organization applications.
Once logged in, Volunteer Organizations are able to “Request Transfer of Ownership” under Your Profile. Should your organization’s Altruition contact depart prior to requesting a transfer of ownership, please contact us to update your Volunteer Organization’s primary contact.
Any student requests for approval of volunteer hours should be rejected if they do not accurately reflect the hours volunteered by the student with your organization. It is critical that Volunteer Organizations uphold this standard of truth to ensure that Altruition properly functions and all student volunteers are treated fairly.
Any hours submitted by a student that are not related to activities directly overseen or administered by your organization must be rejected. Altruition asks that you pay particular attention to instances of submissions related to school-based activities, which are ineligible.
Altruition hosts all personal information on encryption protected servers located within Canada. We do not share any personal information about student members with any third parties except as described in our Privacy Policy. Student applications, including Letters of Reference that attest to financial need, are only viewable to Altruition personnel, as necessary to provide a decision regarding students’ acceptance to Altruition.
Yes. Altruition provides a feature granting permission for a secondary VO contact to access your VO dashboard, receive email notifications, and review student requests.
Once logged in to Altruition, by selecting “Your Profile” you can enter an additional name and email address as a VO contact. Upon doing so (and clicking “update”), an automatic email notification will be sent to the new email address entered, prompting the account owner to speak with you directly to obtain the password. Please note that the dual accounts will share one password, and the alternate contact will have the same permissions as you.
The option is also available to determine whether one or both contacts receive email notifications. We encourage both VO contacts to receive Altruition email notifications to ensure timely reviews of student submissions.
Check your junk and spam folders. If this occurred, ensure that you mark Altruition as a Safe Sender so that you receive notice of your application decision and other important emails. If you are unable to find email confirmation of your application, please contact us.
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