“I really love the goals feature in Helper Helper. It does all the work of keeping track of students’ progress, particularly when we differentiate between “NHS-sponsored hours” and “outside hours.” I love that the app shows students their progress in real time so I don’t have to chase them down with reminders!”
Every school's service program is different. Some require 20 hours for graduation, others track NHS-sponsored hours separately from district-required service, and many run tiered award programs that recognize students at multiple milestones. Helper Helper's goals system is built to handle all of it from a single straightforward hour requirement to layered, multi-criteria goals with category restrictions, date ranges, and survey response requirements. Set it up once, and let the platform do the tracking.
Built for Your Program, Whatever It Looks Like
At its simplest, a goal is a single number: complete 40 hours of service before graduation. But many programs need more nuance than that, and Helper Helper is ready for it.
A single goal can include multiple requirements, each with its own criteria. You can restrict which commitments count by date range so that hours logged over one year don't bleed into another's goal. You can include or exclude specific categories of service, ensuring students meet requirements in the areas that matter to your program. You can filter by organization, so only hours served at approved partner sites count. And for programs that use Helper Helper's Survey Center, you can even qualify hours based on how students answered specific survey questions.
Need to cap contributions? Set a maximum number of hours that any single category can contribute toward a goal so students can't fulfill an entire requirement with just one type of service. And if your goal isn't about total hours at all, you can base it on the number of distinct service opportunities attended, rewarding breadth of engagement rather than just duration.
Powerful Admin Tools
Helper Helper gives administrators full control over how goals are presented and managed:
- Feature key goals to display them prominently on the home screen of every student's app, keeping your most important requirements front and center
- Mark goals admin-only for internal tracking that students never see, while administrators monitor every student's progress behind the scenes
- Export goal status to a spreadsheet showing every student's progress, completion percentage, and award tier, ready for graduation clearance, honor roll verification, or end-of-year reporting
- Message students by goal status with congratulations for those who've earned their award, encouragement for those still working toward it, or a nudge for students who haven't started yet
Report Goal Status Back to Your SIS
Integration Highlight: Helper Helper connects directly to the Canvas gradebook via LTI. Goal requirement status for any goal can be reported back into Canvas automatically, so advisors and administrators see completion data right where they already work.
Helper Helper integrates with a range of student information systems. Goal accomplishments and award status can be reported back into your SIS so that service requirement completion lives alongside the rest of each student's academic record. For systems that don't have a direct integration, our team can build custom goal exports formatted for import into your SIS. No matter what platform your school uses, goal data flows where it needs to go.
Multi-Tier Awards That Motivate
A single finish line can feel distant, especially for freshmen staring down a four-year graduation requirement. Helper Helper lets you create multi-level goal awards so students experience a sense of progress and recognition along the way.
Set up tiered milestones like Bronze, Silver, and Gold, or define your own levels with custom names and thresholds. As students cross each tier, they see their achievement update in the app and administrators can pull award lists for assemblies, certificates, or honor cords. Tiers turn a long-term obligation into a series of wins, keeping students engaged year after year.
Recognize top performers with the National Service Honor. The National Service Honor picks up where the retired Presidential Volunteer Service Award left off, with the same Bronze, Silver, and Gold hour tiers by age group. It is run by the Helper Helper team, and schools can certify a whole cohort of recipients at once using their verified service records. Learn more about the National Service Honor
Team Goals
Not every goal is individual. When a club, advisory, or class has a shared service target — say, 500 collective hours for the semester — you can create a team goal that aggregates progress across all members. Students see the group's combined total alongside their own contributions, fostering collaboration and friendly accountability within the team.
Real-Time Progress for Students
As soon as a student's service is validated, their goal progress updates automatically in both the admin panel and on the student's app. There's no overnight sync or weekly batch process. Students open the app and see exactly where they stand. That real-time visibility means fewer questions at the front desk and more students taking ownership of their own progress.