How Your 7 Cups Volunteering Hours Are Counted

Hi everyone! I hope you are doing well 🤍

Over time, more and more people have been choosing 7 Cups for things like community service, practicum hours, and university requirements. 

This post is specifically for those listeners who are doing hours independently as a listener, not through a 7 Cups Academy program. 

With that, there has also been some confusion around:

• what actually counts as hours
• how those hours are calculated
• what we can and cannot verify

So to make sure everyone is on the same page and to set you up for success from the start, this post walks you through everything you need to know.

How your hours are calculated

We use the following formula:

(Current number of chats – Previous number of chats) ÷ 2

• 2 chats = 1 hour
• 1 chat = 30 messages exchanged between you and a member
• Both live and offline messages count

Where to find your chat count

Go to your profile:
7cups.com/@yourusername

Make sure your username is entered exactly. Look for 'Chats'

If your hours are for official verification (important)

If you need your hours verified for a specific timeframe (for example: your university requires hours completed between certain dates), then:

👉 You must reach out to @Hope before you begin
Your starting chat count will be recorded, so we can verify hours within that exact period.

Important:

• This is only needed if your requirement clearly asks for hours within a specific date range (Example: Your university wants you to do volunteer hours within a specific semester)
• If you do this, only chats from that recorded starting point onward will be counted
• Any chats completed before that point will not be included

👉 This means: if you don’t actually need timeframe-specific verification, do not request a starting count, as it may reduce your total eligible hours

If you do NOT need timeframe-based verification

If your requirement is simply to complete a total number of hours (with no strict start date):

👉 You do not need to contact anyone before starting
👉 You can track your hours yourself using your full chat count

Example: Your school said to complete 100 volunteering hours without stating when exactly they need to be done. 

 🔦Before you begin

Before starting your placement or logging hours, please make sure you review the full Volunteer Work Verification Guidelines

This helps you:

• confirm you meet the requirements
• avoid issues later when requesting verification

Taking a few minutes to go through this before starting helps keep everything clear and avoids issues later on when your hours need to be verified.