Big Brothers Big Sisters
Strategic design and innovation go far beyond aesthetics and functionality. As a design leader, my role is to bridge the power of design with the business drivers that create meaningful impact. This requires guiding my team to think strategically beyond visuals and functionality, to uncover what drives audience engagement and how that translates into overall value realization for the business. This case study highlights an example where I led my team in shaping a strategic transformation through a design and innovation approach that not only elevated an inspiring nonprofit but also stimulated enterprise partnerships among corporate donors.
BBBS Overview
Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) embarked on a strategic innovation initiative to enhance its digital experience, re-engage alumni, and strengthen corporate donor alignment.
Background
BBBS is a national non-profit organization dedicated to fostering one-on-one mentoring relationships that support youth development with an acute focus on young black men and boys. Mentors are called “Bigs” and mentees are called “Littles”. Bigs are matched with Littles until such a time the Littles graduate the program, which is typically adjacent to a high school graduation. Post graduation of their first match, Bigs and Littles become Alumni and are considered high value members of the community given their commitment and engagement. With over 20 million disbanded alumni nationally and strong corporate partnerships, BBBS sought innovative solutions to combine these opportunities in order to enhance engagement, increase donations, and expand volunteer recruitment.
Strategic Innovation
My team delivered an engagement model that included key findings and actionable recommendations derived from deep digital experience analysis, ethnographic insights and a strategic co-creation workshop.
Discovery and research.
We engaged in research to validate key themes, gaps and opportunities.
Ethnographic research
We attended the BBBS National Conference in Dallas, connecting with top corporate donors such as Macy’s, Starbucks, UPS, NFL, and Centene—who are also Adobe Enterprise customers. We met with many Bigs and Littles, volunteers and staff members. This allowed us to understand the spectrum of personas involved with BBBS including challenges and benefits of the program. We also met with CEO Artis Stevens, CMO Adam Vassallo and his team to gain firsthand insights into BBBS’s mission, challenges, and opportunities.
Digital benchmarking
We implemented an objective, rigorous method of performance benchmarking against peers and competitors to identify key digital and engagement gaps. I developed the framework and methodology for this benchmark report with assistance from members of my team.
Discovery outcomes
We uncovered new and higher resolution insights in our discovery process, as well as validated existing assumptions.
Problem definition.
Despite its strong community presence, BBBS faced several key challenges:
Technology Gaps: Incomplete member and alumni profiles due to an outdated technology platform. The current data infrastructure lacks a comprehensive, unified member and alumni profile system. The absence of digitized alumni records hinders personalized engagement and re-engagement efforts.
Omni-Channel Personalization: Lack of tailored experiences for different user personas provides one-size-fits-all rather than 1:1 engagement to distinct profiles (e.g., alumni, prospective volunteers, current participants). The lack of a seamless transition from first contact to program engagement and alumni status reduces retention.
Content Agility: Limited content creation capabilities limits variations by profile and channel, reducing BBBS ability to generate emotional engagement at scale.
Alumni Re-Engagement: Underutilization of its extensive alumni network for fundraising and volunteer expansion.
Workshop and co-innovation.
Armed with validated insights and a strategic direction, my team delivered an in-person co-innovation workshop in San Francisco with the BBBS executive team to reinvent the alumni experience and address gaps uncovered during discovery. This was a fun and immersive 1 day session where we facilitated design thinking methodologies, including serious play Lego ideation.
Output
Aligned a backlog of transformational initiatives to strategic themes of our engagement
Catalogued over 100 use case and feature ideas generated through group ideation
Built valuable executive-facing relationships, with impact to our biggest enterprise opportunities.
Alignment on recommendations.
We produced a blueprint for BBBS transformation that demonstrated a Northstar vision on how they achieve aspirations of reengaging 20M alumni, close experience gaps and future proof the program through expanding donor and volunteer engagement. We provided these recommendations based on short and long term desirability / feasibility alignment from the workshop.
Short term (6-12 month)
With comprehensive profile records in hand, leverage a unified data profile system to develop a personalization strategy to connect with communities based on segmentation and 1:1 engagement.
Utilize AI-driven content recommendations and expand user-generated content initiatives.
Implement a Digitized Unified Data Program that includes developing a comprehensive alumni database and modernizing alumni records by leveraging bulk document scanning technology (Acrobat).
Enhance alumni engagement to include developing a pre-graduation digital scrapbook for alumni to retain memories and connections as well as activating pre-graduation campaigns to drive sustained engagement through the graduation journey.
Long-Term (12-24 month)
Develop an Integrated Alumni Engagement Platform with networking features and exclusive content that introduces post-graduation gamification. Earned badges for recognition and be shared virally and alumni can benefit from exclusive loyalty programs offered by corporate donors for everything from discounts to coupons and special offers.
Launch Re-Engagement Initiatives to establish an Alumni Hall of Fame and digital advocacy tools. These initiatives include leveraging alumni records to organize national and regional alumni reunion events.
Invest in Advanced Data Analytics to deploy a data-driven dashboard to monitor alumni engagement. This could be the foundation to a consolidation effort across BBBS’s tech stack to ensure long-term optimal operations and data governance.
Expected outcomes and business impact.
This strategic design and innovation engagement provided a clear vision for BBBS’s transformation over the next 2 years. The recommendations made target measurable outcomes for the program and are intended to set BBBS up for long-term success in their transformation:
Enhanced Digital Experience: A personalized engagement model that caters to diverse BBBS user groups.
Improved Alumni Activation: Increased donations and volunteer participation through targeted re-engagement strategies.
Corporate Donor Alignment: Strengthened relationships with key corporate partners, leveraging shared digital transformation goals.
Sustainable Growth: A robust, scalable digital framework supporting long-term organizational impact.
By implementing a unified data program, enhancing customer experience and personalization, and optimizing alumni engagement strategies, BBBS is well-positioned to reconnect with 20 million alumni and drive long-term success. The next steps focus on executing key initiatives, tracking progress, and refining strategies based on data-driven insights. This engagement delivered valuable insights that reinforced a strategic vision-match and alignment between BBBS and its corporate donors, vendors and partners, strengthening synergies and influencing enterprise licensing and programming dynamics at the C-suite level.