Multiplying Good

Fall 2023 - Spring 2024

How can we safely connect local, underrepresented high school students with resources so they can work on projects related to their interests?

Project Lead

Anna Mathews

Team Members

Autumn Qiu, Emily Jiang, Evelynn Chen, Kajal Mehta, Karen Gonzalez-Cifuentes, Ramitha Mallavarapu, Vicky Chen

Community Partner

Multiplying Good

Context

Working with Multiplying Good Pittsburgh

Multiplying Good Pittsburgh works with local youth from various Pittsburgh middle schools and high schools to help identify what they are passionate about, and build the skills they need to make a difference.
Through this project, we will be serving Multiplying Good’s 70+ Students in Action Teams in Pittsburgh. We will also be working with ChangeMakers Program alumni and will have a chance to meet the new cohort of professionals in 2023-24 ChangeMakers Program.

Students in Action (SIA) - middle school and high school students that engage in service learning to create community change
ChangeMakers Program - local professionals come together for sixteen weeks to learn about Multiplying Good Pittsburgh and their mission.

Problem Space

Our problem space is centered around how we can empower Multiplying Good Pittsburgh Students in Action (SIA) Teams to reach out for needed resources and enable local professionals (ChangeMakers) to provide support and guidance.

Project Overview

We developed an Airtable database, featuring bios of local professionals (ChangeMakers), facilitating connections between Students in Action (SIA) teams and ChangeMakers capable of offering support for their community projects.

Research

Understanding the current situation for local Student in Action (SIA) Teams

Expert Interview with Jodi Klebick and Courtney Stein

We gained insight into SIA Team project timeline and ChangeMaker alumni process. We identified that we need to find a way to address SIA teams’ struggles during the execute step and establish a certain set of guidelines for ChangeMakers to follow if they want to support SIA teams when they finish the program.

Multiplying Good Fall Leadership Conference

We conducted user interviews to understand specific challenges students were experiencing in the project development process. We also gained valuable insights into how ChangeMaker alumni were staying involved in Multiplying Good and their interest in supporting SIA teams.

- - 30 minute interviews with 6 local Student in Action Teams
  - 20 minute interview with ChangeMakers

Modeling

Synthesizing stakeholder needs based on our research

Reframe

Narrowing down the problem space

After analyzing the User Journey Map, we identified a significant gap in guidance provided to SIA Teams during the ideation phase and project development. Teams struggle with generating innovative solutions to community problems and have a lack of resources when building their projects.

How Can We Statements

How can we empower SIA Teams to reach out for the resources they need while allowing ChangeMakers to see these requests and provide support and guidance?
How can we ensure equitable distribution of resources and support from ChangeMakers, aligning the priority of SIA Team needs and the ChangeMakers’ professional capabilities?
How can we identify suitable resources from ChangeMakers to connect SIA Teams with?
How can we facilitate effective communication between SIA Teams and ChangeMakers, while ensuring the program coordinator's involvement in the interactions?

Design Goals

Be able to facilitate communication between students and ChangeMakers by allowing meetings to be scheduled
Connect students with ChangeMakers that have experience or knowledge of topic that students are investigating
Be able to maintain safe communication with students to allow organization leaders to view conversation
Allow students to share updates on their projects with others to create helpful conversations and interact with other students and ChangeMakers

Ideate

Coming up with many ideas

Refined Concepts Storyboards

Database
Communication Templates
Customized Support Plan Guidelines

Community Partner Feedback

Database

Would be used as a additional resource for students if they are unsuccessful with their own research for resources (would still end up being used a lot)
Director would share the database based on effort they have given in the research phase

Communication Templates

Find a way to automatically CC directors to email within templates
Recommend specific processes communication platforms should have - guidelines
Make documentation of pros and cons of various platforms

Customized Support Plan Guidelines

Could cause students to depend on ChangeMakers too much
Similar newsletter already in place

Build

Building out a solution

Low Fidelity Prototypes

Mid Fidelity Prototype (animated using Google Slides)

High Fidelity Prototype

Test

Getting feedback on our ideas

SIA Team Testing

Multiplying Good Winter Leadership Conference

We tested our high-fidelity prototype with 5 SIA teams. The main points of feedback included the need for incorporating brief profiles and providing easier filtering options. SIA teams also shared that they were interested in working with Changemakers with many specializations and that were financial aid and resource focused.

ChangeMaker Testing

ChangeMaker Focus Group

We provided a demonstration of the use of the Airtable to 9 ChangeMakers. We gathered insights on how to embed the database within the ChangeMaker pipeline effectively. Additionally, we discussed how providing information to be used in the database could become a part of the ChangeMaker graduation process.

One suggestion from ChangeMakers included using Airtable to create automatic notifications for ChangeMakers when a team wants to contact them. Another suggestion was to incorporate a form within the database for communication.

Final Product - ChangeMaker Connect Airtable

SIA Teams

If SIA Teams are interested in working with a ChangeMaker, they can look through ChangeMaker Connect. Using the filters, they can find a ChangeMaker that aligns with their needs.
Once they finalize on the ChangeMaker they want to work with, they can fill out the SIA Team Interest Form.
If the ChangeMaker they want to work with is available, the SIA Team will work with their advisor and program manager to facilitate first contact.

ChangeMakers

After completion of the ChangeMaker program, if a ChangeMaker is interested in supporting SIA Teams, they can fill out the ChangeMaker Interest Form. Their information will automatically be added to ChangeMaker Connect.
ChangeMakers will be given access to the Interested SIA Teams Table, which they can monitor to see if any teams are interested in working with them.
If an SIA team shows interest and the ChangeMaker wants to support the team, the ChangeMaker can work with the program manager to facilitate first contact.

Reflection

Looking back on the work we accomplished

After testing, we experienced technical challenges with the Airtable platform. Initially, we aimed to create an additional contact platform through Airtable to ensure safe, facilitated communication between SIA Teams and ChangeMakers. However, we discovered that the platform could not support this functionality. However, after several rounds of ideation and iteration, we successfully created a form system to manage partnerships between SIA teams and ChangeMakers. This experience highlighted the importance of ideation, as an initial concept may not always be feasible.

Working with Multiplying Good was a valuable experience and being able to meet and connect with so many individuals in the organization and learn about the impact they were making in the local Pittsburgh community was very rewarding. As a team, we identified the importance of collecting and analyzing user feedback data and how it can influence the design goals and objectives of our final product.