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Individual Tab Headings | Award Sheet Layout | Instructions Tab | Award Criteria

According to their website, the President’s Volunteer Service Award program allows you to purchase award packages to acknowledge your volunteers. The spreadsheet from presidentialserviceawards.gov requires that you follow its format exactly so that the volunteers’ names and qualifying information can be merged onto their awards certificates. The PVSA’s fields are listed below. Alternatively, they say you can order blank certificates which you fill out yourself. Perhaps that would be easier?

The Volunteer Reporter has no report specific to the PVSA form, so you will need to gather the volunteers’ names and hours information from an Hours spreadsheet to paste into the Awards spreadsheet. After that you will need to manually fulfill the other columns in the government sheet.
The PVSA sheet tells you, “Enter below the honorees for the President’s Volunteer Service Award (please do not alter the format of this sheet).”

Filter on Hours Served During the Year

This filter is based on the assumption that you are awarding for hours served during the year (not over their whole time of service), which seems to be what the PVSA website implies.

In the Volunteer Reporter, first make a filter for the minimum number of hours required for the lowest award. The limitations are: Served Hours During [set the date range] and Number of Hours During [set the bottom limit, e.g., from 50 to 999 if you have hours for youths, set it at 100 to 999 if all your volunteers are adults].

If you do not give awards to terminated volunteers, on you filter also set: Termination Date | Is blank. [Ignore that the Reporter puts a Yes in “Include Terminated Volunteers?” because it just needs to cycle through those during its search.]

Hours Summary by Volunteer Spreadsheet

In the Volunteer Reporter, run the Hours Summary by Volunteer spreadsheet. The instructions with the PVSA sheet do not clarify, but presumably the government processing will sort the recipients by AGE GROUP and HOURS SERVED so that it shouldn’t be necessary for you to sort the sheet or run the report for each level of hours served.

Volunteer Reporter | Spreadsheets | Hours | Summary by Volunteer | Set the date range | use the filter on number of hours | Check the box to include Volunteer Details.

This report will give the all the hours for the year from the minimum qualifying amount upwards, as well as the lifetime hours of the volunteer as of today. The first and last name are combined into one field, however, whereas the government award sheet splits them into two columns.

Manipulate the Columns

Delete all the unneeded columns, keeping the Name, Hours, Birth Date, and Life Hours columns.

Add and title 2 columns to match the layout of the PVSA sheet:

  1. FIRST NAME
  2. AWARD PERIOD ENDING ON

Rename BIRTH DATE in the Reporter’s spreadsheet to AGE GROUP and move it next to the blank LAST NAME column to match the PVSA layout.

Individual Tab Headings

The downloaded spreadsheet PVSA_CO_CertUpload_V120209.xls provides no definitions for the hours criteria, so individual organizations apparently set their own numbers of qualifying hours and period of time. Their website seems to say that the service hours are based on a year’s service. The agency handling the volunteers needs to define what year this period entails—a calendar year, fiscal year or other?

FIRST NAME

LAST NAME

AGE GROUP – Enter: Kid, Young Adult or Adult

HOURS SERVED – Numbers only

LIFETIME (4,000 hours) – Enter Yes or No

AWARD PERIOD ENDING ON – Date in mm/dd/yyyy format

PSA

Copy and Paste the Reporter Data into the Awards Sheet

Now you can copy and paste the data from the Reporter’s spreadsheet into the PVSA sheet. When you paste into Excel, the receiving document needs the same number of rows and columns selected to paste into as the data from the initial spreadsheet. Do not select the header rows.

PSA-5

  1. The completion of the sheet requires you to split the name into two columns, a process that can be done in Excel with a formula or done by hand. We are not Excel wizards so we can only refer you to the Help file.
  2. Replace the birthdate for each volunteer with the appropriate label [Kid, Young Adult or Adult].
  3. Edit the LIFETIME column Yes or No depending upon the number of hours.
  4. Enter the appropriate date into the AWARD PERIOD ENDING ON field.

You can sort this spreadsheet as any other Excel document to group volunteers by HOURS SERVED if this will help you in determining how many awards to order from PVSA. Seek guidance from the PVSA staff if there are questions because we are merely trying to interpret what is written on their site and may well have missed the point.

REFERENCE TEXT COPIED FROM THE PVSA WEBSITE

Award Criteria

Any individual, family, or group can receive Presidential recognition for volunteer hours earned over a 12-month period or over the course of a lifetime at home or abroad. The following are the eligibility requirements for each age group:

  • Kids: Age 5-14
  • Young Adults: Individual Age 15-25
  • Adults: Individual Age 26 +

Picture of Bronze President’s Volunteer Service Award Pin

Presidential Volunteer Service Award Criteria

Bronze Level

  • Kids: 50 to 74 hours
  • Young Adults: 100 to 174 hours
  • Adults: 100 to 249 hours
  • Family & Groups: 200 to 499 hours

Picture of Silver President’s Volunteer Service Award Pin

Presidential Volunteer Service Award Criteria

Silver Level.

  • Kids: 75 to 99 hours
  • Young Adults: 175 to 249 hours
  • Adults: 250 to 499 hours
  • Family & Groups: 500 to 999 hours

Picture of Blue President’s Volunteer Service Award Pin

Presidential Volunteer Service Award Criteria

Gold Level.

  • Kids: 100 hours or more
  • Young Adults: 250 hours or more
  • Adults: 500 hours or more
  • Family & Groups: 1000 hours or more

Picture of Blue President’s Volunteer Service Award Pin

President’s Call to Service Award

Presidential Volunteer Service Award Criteria

  • All Ages
  • 4,000 hours or more of volunteer service (over a lifetime).

Award Sheet Layout

At the bottom of the spreadsheet are three tabs to select from.

PSA

Instructions tab

The Instructions on the Instructions sheet of the workbook leave room for interpretation by the awarding agency. They are reproduced in full below.

PSA-2

Dear Certifying Organization,

This new Awards Certification Excel Spreadsheet replaces the current excel worksheet that was available under downloads. We have simplified the process with fewer and easier steps to place customized orders. The Key benefit to the new form is that it complements the on-line ordering process. Note: This form must be used on line with the order system. Do not e-mail this form.

This allows you to:

Keep records of all orders you place under your organizations profile.
Once you complete the excel sheet all you have to do is upload it to our order system and it populates all of your custom orders into your order cart.
You have the flexibility to review and make changes before you place the order.
No more worries of having to send the form via fax or e-mail and not know if it has been received. All information will be contained and manage by you within your CO’s profile.
You will receive an order number which helps with customer service and order inquiries.
The electronic transmission of the personalized names for printing eliminates production errors with names and dates and will provide a faster turnaround.
The form is very easy to use. Below are the steps to get started: There are two tabs in the workbook. One to request Customized Individual awards and the second is to request customized family/group awards.

For Individual awards click the “individuals” tab. You will be required to enter at a minimum their first and last name, age group and number of service hours.
– Enter “kid” if your volunteer’s age is between 5 and 14
– Enter “Young Adult” if your volunteers age is between 15 and 25
– Enter “Adult” if your volunteer’s age is 26 and older
For Group and family volunteers click the “Groups & Families” tab. You will be required to enter at a minimum their group name, number of members in the group and the number of service hours.
Once you have entered all your volunteers, go to the PVSA website http://www.presidentialserviceawards.gov and login to your Certifying Organization account. Click on the Order Awards tab and click on Step 3 under the “to Place personalized orders” section. Then follow the instructions on the screen to upload your file.
It is that easy!

Important notes

Please review your data carefully. The information you provide will be used to certify the volunteers, calculate award levels and to print the certificates. The name you type on the form is the name that will be printed on the certificate. You can always visit www.presidentialserviceawards.gov award criteria as refresher to level achievements.
Enter the data in the formats requested. Please do not modify the layout of this excel document. This could tamper with printing and calculations.
There is no payment information required with this form. All payments are made on the secure website.
We no longer accept faxes or mail-in or e-mail orders. This form must be used with the on-line order system within PVSA.
Enjoy The Presidents Volunteer Service Awards Customer Service Team

Revised 02/Aug/2011

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