Branch · School-based
I.
Chapter Network
Any high school student attending one of our school chapters can register through their school. Each chapter is shaped by the students who run it, with verified service hours that travel beyond the classroom.
About / our story
We grew out of a simple question.
What if every high schooler had a way to turn what they care about into something real for someone else? Daksh Shah and Shubham Trivedi started Hands of Hope in Atlanta to answer it, and every year since, students have answered it themselves: one branch, one cause, one community at a time.
How we work
Depth, not breadth.
Hands of Hope does not scale by launching global initiatives. It scales one branch, one student, at a time.
Everything serves two goals at once
01
Global impact
Communities around the world get real, sustained support, not a single visit and a photo.
02
Student growth
High schoolers turn compassion into leadership experience and hands-on action they actually own.
These aren't two programs. The first is what happens when enough branches do the second one well.
The branch system
One branch. One cause. Mastered.
Each branch is based at a school or in a community and goes deep on a single cause instead of spreading thin across many. Branches pick their own cause, their own community partners, and their own programming. The autonomy is real, not nominal.
Innovation Academy, the founding branch, is the one exception: two specialized sides running as one. STEM Together volunteers with MDE School and other special-needs schools. Atlanta Mission helps sustain the day-to-day operations of an understaffed local organization. STEM Together now runs at more than one branch.
A typical single-cause nonprofit
One cause, and that is the whole organization
One Hands of Hope branch
The same cause, taken all the way down
The network
Every branch, every cause, at that depth
What another organization treats as its whole mission is, here, one branch's full-time focus.
One more thing
Leadership does the work too.
Co-founders, executives, and branch leaders are not administrators positioned above the volunteer work. They are the volunteers. Founders pack kits at Ripple for Change. Branch leaders run their programming with their own hands instead of delegating it away.
The org chart is a division of hands-on responsibility, not a management hierarchy.
Branch · Inclusive education
II.
STEM Together
Students run hands-on, accessible STEM sessions with MDE School and other special-needs schools. Built around joy, agency, and discovery, never around curriculum compliance. It started at the founding branch and now runs at more than one.
Branch · Student-led, anywhere
III.
Start a Chapter
No chapter at your school? Start one. We'll send the chapter starter kit and pair you with a founder mentor within 48 hours, anywhere a student wants to build something for the people around them.
Annual event · Winter
IV.
Awards Ceremony
Once a year the whole network stops moving and looks at what it did. Branches and individual members are recognized from the stage for the work they carried, in front of the families, partners, and classmates who watched them carry it.
Annual event · Spring
V.
Ripple for Change
Branches spend the year tallying what the communities they serve say they need most, and whatever comes out on top becomes the theme. Then every branch converges on the same tables and packs thousands of care kits around it. The day many branches become visibly one organization.
Where we stand
International
Hands of Hope started in Atlanta. Students now run branches across multiple U.S. states and in Canada, Chile, and Denmark. Each one picks its own cause and its own community partners. Wherever a student wants to build something for the people around them, there should be a branch.
Status
Registered 501(c)(3)
Fiscally sponsored by Hack Club. Donations are tax-deductible.
US
United States
Founded in Atlanta · branches across multiple states
INTL
Canada · Chile · Denmark
Branches running their own causes abroad
501c3
501(c)(3)
Fiscally sponsored · tax-deductible
Stay close
Follow us on our journey.
Most of what we do is quiet. Students showing up, week after week. The loud parts live on Instagram and LinkedIn. Follow along.