{"id":17020,"date":"2019-12-06T15:33:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T20:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/?p=17020"},"modified":"2024-07-08T06:05:12","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T10:05:12","slug":"backpac-helps-encourage-volunteerism-among-those-who-cant-put-down-the-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2019\/12\/06\/backpac-helps-encourage-volunteerism-among-those-who-cant-put-down-the-phone\/","title":{"rendered":"BackPac helps encourage volunteerism among those who can\u2019t put down the phone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"420\" src=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo.jpg\" alt=\"furry black &amp; white animal with tale, waving\" class=\"wp-image-17023\" srcset=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo.jpg 600w, https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo-286x200.jpg 286w, https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo-200x140.jpg 200w, https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo-60x42.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Packy, a furry, fun mascot is the symbol of the <a href=\"http:\/\/engaged.umich.edu\/news-features\/backpac-helps-encourage-volunteerism-among-those-who-cant-put-down-the-phone\/\">BackPac app created by U-M students<\/a> to encourage others, particularly their peers, to spend some time volunteering in the community&#8212;especially during the holidays when the needs are great.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe number of volunteers has significantly gone down in the last decade,\u201d said <strong>Gaurav Dhir<\/strong>, co-founder of BackPac and a graduate of the Ross School of Business. \u201cDuring the same period, the number of nonprofits and volunteers needed has gone up. We wanted to bridge this growing gap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through the\u00a0TechArb Student Accelerator,\u00a0they created BackPac with tech-focused millennials in mind. Users can find local nonprofit organizations and read about their missions, a description of the assignments, and the importance of the tasks. Users can pick a date and time to volunteer, sign up, check out various transportation options, and find out any special requirements in advance. The app will even keep track of a user\u2019s volunteer hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Packy, a furry, fun mascot is the symbol of the BackPac app created by U-M students to encourage others, particularly their peers, to spend some time volunteering in the community&#8212;especially during the holidays when the needs are great.\u00a0 \u201cThe number of volunteers has significantly gone down in the last decade,\u201d said Gaurav Dhir, co-founder of BackPac and a\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2019\/12\/06\/backpac-helps-encourage-volunteerism-among-those-who-cant-put-down-the-phone\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_umich_oidc_access":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[69,18,302,96],"class_list":["post-17020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","tag-apps","tag-community-service","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-students"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo.jpg",600,420,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo-200x140.jpg",200,140,true],"medium":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo-286x200.jpg",286,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo.jpg",600,420,false],"large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo.jpg",600,420,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo.jpg",600,420,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo.jpg",600,420,false],"excerpt-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo-200x140.jpg",200,140,true],"themonic-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo-60x42.jpg",60,42,true],"ioslider-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo-600x300.jpg",600,300,true],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo.jpg",600,420,false],"400x250-crop":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Backpac-App-Icon-Logo.jpg",357,250,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"News Staff","author_link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/author\/mitnewsadm\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Packy, a furry, fun mascot is the symbol of the BackPac app created by U-M students to encourage others, particularly their peers, to spend some time volunteering in the community&#8212;especially during the holidays when the needs are great.\u00a0 \u201cThe number of volunteers has significantly gone down in the last decade,\u201d said Gaurav Dhir, co-founder of&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17020"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17026,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17020\/revisions\/17026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}