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?
Anna Mathews
Autumn Qiu, Emily Jiang, Evelynn Chen, Kajal Mehta, Karen Gonzalez-Cifuentes, Ramitha Mallavarapu, Vicky Chen
Multiplying Good
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.
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
Synthesizing stakeholder needs based on our research
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
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
Building out a solution
Low Fidelity Prototypes
Mid Fidelity Prototype (animated using Google Slides)
High Fidelity Prototype
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.
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.