Client Challenge:
A California-based non-profit organization was spending up to $40,000 a year on one-time use paper agendas; this was both economically and environmentally unsound.
- The foundation supports a student-run organization with over 11,000 high school members in more than 30 states
- The students host nearly 30 overnight conventions per year, some with nearly 1,500 attendees
- The foundation needed an event application to cut costs, streamline conventions, and incentivize students come
The New Leaf Solution:
New Leaf worked in coordination with foundation employees, student leaders, and DoubleDutch, a live engagement application designer, to create a customizable application for every unique event.
- We began by leading the blueprinting and requirement gathering, this involved an intensive interview process with students, staff, and board members of the organization
- We then managed the platform vender selection process comparing several different providers’ functionality as well as price point
- New Leaf’s team negotiated the per-event pricing with the DoubleDutch staff in order to secure a fair price for our client
- Cooperation and the use of many different people’s inputs and ideas was successfully facilitated by New Leaf as prototype apps were designed
- We worked to ensure that the business needs of the foundation and the functional needs of the students were efficiently and effectively implemented within the DoubleDutch platform
- In the end New Leaf designed multiple different prototype applications and systems that were evaluated by students and staff before a final product was selected
- The final product not only has the ability to display agendas, but also has gamifaction and leaderboards, direct messaging, as well as in-app voting on propositions authored by the students
- We successfully supervised the alpha and beta testing at small one-day conferences before helping with a full nation-wide roll out of the application at multiple simultaneous overnight conventions
- Since the roll out we have provided both Tier 1 and Tier 2 support to the organization in order to ensure that the students utilize every available function within the platform
Impact on the Client’s Business:
With the help of New Leaf the client now has a functioning and customizable platform that they will be able to use for years to come.
- After working with us, the non-profit will save tens of thousands of dollars each year which is hugely important for their business
- The organization is now more attractive to prospective students because it has modernized its practices
- The conventions are now run nearly seamlessly because the student leaders can disseminate information quickly to all the attendees using push notifications and other communication functions
- The organization has seen an uptick in attendance since the application roll out
- The new application has created a new revenue stream of the organization due to New Leaf’s incorporation of marketing/advertising space within the application
- The foundation can gather real time data and feedback on what works and what doesn’t using the application, this will lead to smarter and more efficient events in the future
- Amazingly, the application has garnered 90% target user adoption and engagement in under a year
- Overall, New Leaf has built a platform that will save the organization money, eliminate paper waste, provide the non-profit with additional revenue, expand convention attendance, improve student experience, and allow for continuous data-driven improvement to the conventions
