This fall, we are partnering up with 5 nonprofits working on incredible missions. Read on to learn about our new partners’ stories and how Blueprint will be helping them expand their impact in the community.
1. BizWorld
BizWorld’s Mission
BizWorld is a nonprofit based in San Francisco that develops entrepreneurship curricula for elementary schools. They believe that the foundation for a business education is extremely vital for kids, so they currently have 3 modules ranging from general entrepreneurship to finance and investing.
Blueprint’s Role
BizWorld currently gets feedback from teachers based on assessments distributed before and after class, but they’re facing problems with manually going through the data. Errors in data, such as kids misspelling names, contribute to this issue.
Blueprint’s BizWorld team, led by Nikhil Narayen, will be building out a new educator portal for instructors to use. This portal will enable:
- teachers to conduct and review assessments in a streamlined, consolidated process
- BizWorld’s data team to track students’ performance over time
As a result, the portal will increase efficiency and expand visibility into the program’s successes.
2. California Rangeland Trust
What They Do
California Rangeland Trust (CRT) works to preserve and maintain wildlife ranges in California. This is crucial because these ranges act as wildlife habitats for fauna and flora, preserve our air and water quality, and define the community for families who have grown up here. CRT reserves ranches as rangelands, which protects these areas from being developed into commercial attractions.
Blueprint’s Project
Endowments are crucial to CRT’s daily operations, since they allow the program to continue maintaining preservation activities. Currently, all the endowment information for each rangeland is on an Excel workbook, and each workbook has a page for every year it has been in the trust. CRT works with more than 50 rangelands, which means that there are dozens of workbooks to sort through and open whenever there is a data change.
Blueprint’s CRT team, led by Jordeen Chang, will build an easy-to-use program to help CRT manage their endowment information. This program will include:
- simplified organization for existing data to make search faster
- functionalities to easily manipulate data
- tools to generate relevant reports for efficient analysis
3. EDGE Youth Leadership
What EDGE Does
EDGE Youth Leadership (EDGE) reaches out to local high school students to develop their leadership potential. By organizing leadership workshop conferences, EDGE Youth Leadership allows students from different backgrounds and schools to come together and learn about how to lead and better their communities.
With a host of team-building and networking activities offered during EDGE Youth Leadership’s annual event, participants leave the program with new friendships and the confidence to help their communities through service. Students who participate go on to complete hundreds of hours of local community service and establish their own counseling and service groups in their local areas.
Blueprint’s Vision
EDGE Youth Leadership utilizes many services as they organize their annual events. However, using a different program for each task leads to decentralized workflows and a complex, growing list of services the nonprofit relies on.
Warren Shen is leading Blueprint’s EDGE Youth Leadership team, which will create a web app that combines all the services the nonprofit uses right now. This app will:
- enable community outreach to all of the partners and schools involved
- track relevant participant data for future follow-ups, increasing efficiency
- consolidate current processes by linking together crucial functionalities the team requires
4. Ashby Village
Ashby Village’s Mission
Ashby Village serves individuals above the age of 50 in order to connect members with each other and with the resources needed to remain active and independent. Current quality-of-life services often do not help individuals stay in their homes and communities as they grow older. Ashby Village aims to combat this by allowing members to access key services that enrich their lives and allow them to maintain their current lifestyles.
Blueprint’s Role
With current services offered in Berkeley, El Cerrito, Albany, and Kensington, Ashby Village is growing rapidly. However, the current system does not effectively create incentives for new users to reach out to other members.
Blueprint’s project, led by Daniel Li, will support Ashby Village by creating a social platform. This new platform will help members:
- drive greater involvement in Ashby Village’s programs
- discuss topics in an accessible forum
- coordinate community-wide events with each other more easily
5. Sage Mentorship Project
What They Do
The SAGE Mentorship Project is a program that connects UC Berkeley with local elementary school students so they can help mentor them and develop their personal growth. The program allows mentors to earn credits in exchange for helping youth in Berkeley and Oakland learn academic and personal skills. The program already works in 10 elementary schools, and new mentors continue to join every semester.
Blueprint’s Project
Since SAGE Mentorship works with a vast number of mentors and students, holding each mentor accountable to their assignments can be time-consuming. Mentors are required to commit to a prescheduled amount of hours, and the current method of sign-in sheets is inefficient.
SAGE Mentorship approached Blueprint asking for a new management app to help with this process. This app will allow:
- mentors to check in to their volunteer sites and will geographically verify their attendance
- SAGE Mentorship administrators to post updates and messages to the mentors
As a result, program coordinators and mentors will be able to have more streamlined workflows and maintain direct communication.
