In order to promote the development of the western region and the underdeveloped areas in the province, further expand the employment channels for college students, and promote the growth of young students, since 2003, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security have launched and implemented the plan for college students to volunteer to serve the western region. In the same year, as a local project of the "Western Plan", the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League, together with the Provincial Department of Education, the Provincial Department of Finance, the Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security and other relevant departments, launched the Shandong Project of the Western Plan for College Students Volunteer Service (the "Shandong Plan" for short).

In 2014, on the basis of keeping the national project scale basically unchanged, the Shandong Project Office appropriately extended the service field of the "Shandong Plan". First, in combination with the local and municipal counterpart construction assistance tasks, the key poverty alleviation work of Jining's counterpart support to Yingjisha County in Xinjiang and Yantai's counterpart support to Wushan County in Chongqing were included in the "Shandong Plan"; The second is to support the construction of community youth volunteer service stations in combination with the lottery public welfare fund, and add 67 volunteers to the grass-roots communities (sub district offices) in cities in the province to engage in the daily management of youth volunteer service stations (posts) and other youth service platforms.

Up to now, Shandong Province has selected and dispatched 624 college student volunteers to carry out volunteer services for 1-3 years in basic education, agricultural science and technology, medical and health care, youth work at the grass-roots level, social management at the grass-roots level and other posts in township and grass-roots units in various cities of the province. After the service period expires, more than one third of the volunteers choose to take root in the service place and devote their youth.