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Volunteer Reference Guide
The Serve Illinois Galaxy Digital website, developed by the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS), is a free platform designed to help Illinoisans find volunteer opportunities in their communities. This quick reference guide is designed to help individuals navigate the Galaxy Digital system by providing step-by-step instructions.
A. Registering a User Name
1. Individual Registration
a. Go to https://serveillinois.galaxydigital.com/ and click on “Sign up.”
b. This will open the “Create Your Account” page, where you will enter:
i. First name
ii. Last name
iii. Email address
iv. Postal code
v. County
vi. Password (Must be 8+ characters and include letters, numbers, and symbols)
c. After entering all required information, select the blue button to create account.
d. An email verification will be sent to the email you provided.
e. Please open your email and copy the code that was sent to you.
f. Go back to "verify email page" and paste the code and click verify email.
g. Sign in with the email you just created, select next, enter your password and select “Sign In”.
h. This will open “Create a User Account Page.”
B. Creating an Account in Galaxy Digital
1. User Account Page
a. The Galaxy Digital system will pull over your:
i. First/Last Name
ii. Email address
b. The following information can be used to build out your user profile. To do this, the following information will be needed:
i. Date of Birth
c. Please select “Yes or No” on the Communication Preference box.
d. Select “Yes or No” to submit to a criminal background check.
e. Click on the volunteer waiver link to download, and then to confirm, select “Yes or No” after reviewing the document.
f. If you participate in a SNAP Program, please click the link to download your Activity Report.
g. Congratulations! You’ve just completed an individual user registration and created a Galaxy Digital account.
C. How to Search for Volunteer Opportunities
1. Visit the needs page at https://serveillinois.galaxydigital.com/need/. Volunteers have several ways to search for opportunities in the system:
a. Tap the magnifying glass icon to browse opportunities in three different views: List, Map, or Calendar
b. Search by date, location, skills, and more
c. By Interest - volunteers can search for opportunities that match their selected interests or skills
d. By Initiative - filter opportunities grouped under specific campaigns or seasonal programs
e. By geolocation - find opportunities near their current location
2. There are two main ways for volunteers to access volunteer opportunities in the system.
a. Once you've searched as described above and found an interesting opportunity, select an organization with an active need and submit a request to volunteer. Serve Illinois staff will review the request, and a notification will be sent to the volunteer’s email account once it is responded to.
b. A volunteer can also respond to a volunteer need sent via email or text by clicking on the link, logging in to the system, and replying to the need.
D. How to Sign Up for Volunteer Opportunities
1. There are several ways volunteers can sign up to respond to volunteer opportunities.
a. Volunteers can find an opportunity on Galaxy Digital and register themselves or join through registration links provided by agencies.
b. Alternatively, agency managers can manually add users individually.
i. There are several pieces of information an Agency Manager must have on hand when entering a manual opportunity response for a volunteer:
1. The email account the volunteer account is associated with.
2. The volunteer opportunity that was selected.
3. If the opportunity has scheduled shifts associated with it, then the Agency Manager needs to know which shift to respond to on behalf of the volunteer.
ii. NOTE: On the Serve Illinois site, volunteers are required to submit to a background check and agree to a volunteer waiver before they can register for Needs. These steps help ensure volunteers meet specific requirements before responding to a volunteer need. When Agency Managers manually add a user to a volunteer need, they bypass the qualifications if the individual has not already completed them. The site allows this, but the organization should understand they are doing so.
E. Documenting Volunteer Hours for SNAP Recipients
1. There are two approved ways for customers to report Serve Illinois volunteer hours which they're using to meet the SNAP work requirement:
a. Volunteers can turn in Serve Illinois Galaxy Digital's Benefit Activity Report, OR
b. Volunteers can turn in the SNAP Activity Report.
2. Turning Documentation In to IDHS:
a. The customer can turn the pdf of the Benefit Activity Report or the signed SNAP Activity Report in through any of these methods:
i. Scan and submit using the “Upload Documents” button on your Manage My Case (MMC) dashboard; or
ii. Return it by mail or in-person to your Family Community Resource Center; or
iii. Mail it to the Central Scanning Processing Unit (CSU P.O. Box 19138, Springfield, IL 62763)
3. Option 1: Benefit Activity Report
a. The Galaxy Digital platform offers a report called "Benefit Activity Report"
i. NOTE: Galaxy Digital has an update in process to change this report's name to “Verified Volunteer Hours”. This is the same report.
ii. To find the report from the user’s dashboard, select “View your full Volunteer Resume” on the right side of the dashboard.
iii. The user will then be routed to their profile where there are two buttons.
iv. Select the “Benefit Activity Report” button and enter the date range the user wants then select "Go". Do not select the “Volunteer Resume” report.
v. If being used for SNAP reporting, the user should select only for the specific period of time they are providing documentation for.
vi. If the user has completed volunteer hours in that timeframe, the system will download the “Benefit Activity Report” which can be opened as a PDF.
vii. The PDF will display the user’s name, date of birth, and any approved hours in the reporting period selected.
viii. If the user selects a date range during which they did not complete any volunteer hours, the report cannot be generated and they will get an error message.
4. Option 2: SNAP Activity Report
a. Alternatively, volunteer hours can be documented through the SNAP Activity Report.
b. An organizational representative must sign the SNAP Activity Report to verify the volunteer activity. The agency verification is important – the hours may not be counted toward the work requirement without it.
c. The SNAP Activity Report can be downloaded through the Galaxy Digital System or on IDHS’s website (English) (Spanish).
d. To find the form on Galaxy Digital, an individual or agency manager must go to the Qualifications Tab and download the link titled SNAP Activity Report.
F. Troubleshooting Resources
1. Galaxy Digital maintains a library of helpful articles on navigating the site at https://learn.getconnectedvolunteer.com/en/.
G. Serve Illinois Contact Information
1. For assistance with Serve Illinois Galaxy Digital, contact: Jacob Jenkins, MA, Volunteer Program Manager/ Disaster Preparedness Liaison