After graduating college and realizing his chosen career path was no longer an option, Mike DeMille wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his life. He quickly realized that he wasn’t just looking for a job, he wanted to create something that would be able to impact and change lives. In 2012 he discovered the newly emerging concept of social entrepreneurship and for-benefit corporations, the idea of using a for-profit business to solve non-profit problems.  Because of his deep love for service, this concept sparked something in him and he spent the next two years researching and redefining what he wanted to accomplish.  When he heard a quote from Bill Gates during his Harvard commencement speech, “the barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity,” it resonated with him. Having had difficulties finding out about volunteer opportunities and local nonprofit events, he understood exactly what some of the barriers to involvement can be. He soon realized that organizing all the nonprofit resources and information – news, events, projects, etc. – and getting it to the community in a simple, functional way could have a dramatic impact on community involvement. From that idea Southern Utah Cares was founded in 2014.

Since that time we’ve worked tirelessly to expand and improve the services we offer. Working with local nonprofit leaders to better determine how to serve the nonprofit sector, Southern Utah Cares has focused on addressing many ideas, wants, and needs of community organizations.

Our goal is to change the way nonprofits and the community connect. At Southern Utah Cares through partnerships with local platforms we’re focused on bringing all the information into one place, so you can easily find the charity you’ve been meaning to donate to or the right organization to get the help you need. We’ve made finding out about community events and opportunities to serve just a click away. Our hope is that as we make it easy to get involved, we can all work together to create the best possible Southern Utah community. Join us in making change happen.

While originally hosting the calendar, organization directory, and volunteer opportunity list directly on Southern Utah Cares, it eventually became apparent that our simple WordPress website wasn’t robust enough to offer the tooling and reports that organizations needed to run their operations.  We have since partnered with platforms like Utah 211, Just Serve, and Get Connected Dixie to help us organize this information and provide better services for the community and organizations.  We have shifted our focus to helping organizations share their news and information through our site and social media, while also beginning the process of creating our final solution to this problem.

We are excited to announce that we are beginning to work on a platform that will combine the simplicity of the original Southern Utah Cares with the tools, reports, and more robust services that these individual partners provide.  While still in the works, our platform will most likely be called Serve Local and you can learn more about it and get involved at hello.servelocal.org.