How Rally Started
We met during our first semester at Northeastern, abroad in Paris. Coming back to Boston campus, we wanted to be involved in everything. Classes, internships, clubs, friends, sorority life.
We both joined sororities where we faced our first community service requirement in college. In high school, we were both community service oriented, accumulating hours for Honor Society and college applications. However, most of these volunteer events were located by word of mouth and school programs. Being new to Boston, we had no idea where to start in the community service scene.
In an effort to locate these events, we scrolled through outdated websites, inactive apps, random spreadsheets, and Facebook groups that had not been touched in months. Nonprofit pages were hard to find, and it took forever just to figure out what was actually happening in Boston and how to sign up.
We are avid Partiful, Beli, and Strava users and so we knew there had to be a better way to approach this issue. After doing extensive research, we found that such an app to socialize volunteering did not exist. So, we decided to build it.
The problem was not that students did not want to volunteer, in fact, many have to volunteer in order to reach community service hour requirements. The problem was locating opportunities, finding the social motivation to actually go, and having a centralized platform to facilitate these interactions.
Rally is a quick and easy, social way to discover local volunteer events, invite your friends, and track your hours together.
We are building Rally for Gen Z college students who find themselves in the same situation as us: wanting to get involved and volunteer but don't know where to start.
What We Believe
The thing that gets people to continue showing up isn't always the cause or event, but rather the community. When your roommate is going, you go. When your sorority, fraternity, student government group, or pre-med club is doing it together, you actually commit. Volunteering is more fun when it is social, and people are more consistent when they feel like they are part of something.
We want civic engagement to become an integrated part of your life. Not a big event you plan weeks in advance, or something you do alone to meet a requirement. Just like any other social activity, such as grabbing coffee with friends or going to the gym. Small actions, done consistently, make communities stronger.
Rally is coming to college campuses in Boston this fall. Our long-term goal is simple: make volunteering easy and social. Because when people show up together, they build stronger friendships, stronger campuses, and stronger cities.
