Bridging tech and impact: Empowering the impact sector with tech best practices
In July, I co-facilitated a 3-day design sprint in Bangalore to empower organizations in the impact sector with tools and best practices from the tech industry. This event, co-organized by The Agency Fund and Tech4Dev, brought together diverse nonprofits from India, Mali, Kenya, and South Africa.
The sprint united organizations from EdTech, HealthTech, and AgriTech sectors, focusing on enhancing user engagement and leveraging large language models for social impact. One commonality across these organizations is their chat-based service delivery model.
- EdTech: Rocket Learning, Avanti Fellows, The Apprentice Project, Karya, Saajha, Kabakoo Academies, SameSame, Bandhu, Involve Learning Solutions, Udhyam Learning Foundation
- HealthTech: Noora Health, Jacaranda Health
- AgriTech: Digital Green, Precision Development
Breakdown of the Sprint
The sprint was divided into two tracks: User Engagement and Large Language Models. As a facilitator for the User Engagement track, I was impressed by how the event’s structure incorporates the tech industry’s product development process. The activities were carefully scaffolded to build on each other, ensuring that each participating organization derived tangible benefits and actionable learnings from the experience.
Day 1: User Funnels and Impact Metrics
The first day introduced the critical concept of user funnels — a staple in tech — to the impact sector. We explored how to translate abstract “theories of change” into measurable user funnels — a skill increasingly demanded by funders. This approach, common in tech but new to many participants, helped organizations gain new perspectives on how to quantify their impact through proximal metrics.
Some participants, such as Rocket Learning and Saajha, demonstrated their adoption of user funnels during the session. These real-world examples from within the impact sector provided tangible inspiration for other participants, illustrating how tech-inspired analytics can be effectively applied to social initiatives.
Day 2: Impactful UX and Intervention Design
I kicked off Day 2 with a presentation on three principles of Impactful UX, illustrated through social sector case studies:
- Solve for the Root Problem: Embrace’s Sleep Bag
- Remove Friction: Civilla’s Project Re-Form
- Care for Details: Open Government Products’s Vaccine App
I then led an in-depth session on user journey maps and personas. We discussed the key components, use cases, and development processes for these artifacts. To ground the concepts, I shared real-world examples from my experience at Coursera.
The core of the second day was an interactive workshop on intervention design. Participants engaged in a series of hands-on exercises, following a structured approach:
- Funnel diagnostics: Identifying key areas for improvement in their user journey
- Action mapping: Outlining user actions and evaluating drivers of motivation and ability
- Idea generation: Brainstorming intervention ideas using the EAST framework (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely)
- Prioritization: Assessing and ranking interventions based on potential impact and feasibility
- Prototyping: Creating user stories and developing initial experiment prototypes
We concluded with a pilot exercise, where organizations role-played each other’s target personas to provide valuable feedback on proposed experiments, simulating user testing practices common in tech product development.
Day 3: Setting Up for Successful Experimentation
The final day focused on equipping organizations with tools for data-driven decision making — a cornerstone of tech industry success. We covered A/B testing mechanics and demonstrated key features of effective experiment platforms, using examples from Rocket Learning and tech giants like Google.
A key exercise involved participants using a template sheet with built-in power calculations to design potential experiments. This hands-on activity, mirroring common tech practices, sparked lively discussions about user segmentation and sample size considerations. By demystifying these technical concepts, the session empowered participants to start implementing data-driven improvements in their programs.
Recognizing the need for relevant benchmarks in the impact sector (similar to engagement metrics in tech), we discussed creating a shared database for nonprofits to learn from each other’s experiments and outcomes.
Success factors
Several factors contributed to the sprint’s success:
- A clear, action-oriented roadmap that guided participants from understanding user funnels to designing and testing interventions.
- Effective pre-work preparation that ensured participants gathered the necessary data before the workshops, clearly defined their goals, and set realistic expectations for what they could achieve by participating.
- A responsive and adaptive approach by the organizers, who actively listened to attendee feedback through brief surveys conducted twice daily, and adjusted the next day’s schedule to address the feedback gathered.
Throughout the sprint, case studies from participating organizations provided real-life examples and inspired peer learning.
Opportunities for Improvement
In the spirit of learning, here are some opportunities for improvement in future iterations:
- Expanded Interaction Time: Allocating more time for hands-on activities and peer feedback sessions would allow participants to dive deeper into concepts, explore ideas more thoroughly, and receive more feedback from their peers.
- Deeper Icebreaker Connection: An upfront, engaging exercise designed to familiarize all participants with each other’s organizations would streamline introductions and eliminate the need for repeated introductions of individual organizations during peer sessions.
- Cross-Track Exchange: The User Engagement and Large Language Models tracks operated in separate conference rooms, intersecting only during select talks and social times. Many participants expressed a desire to learn from both tracks. Implementing a mini-showcase for all participants to share key learnings and outcomes could address this need, enriching the overall experience.
- Extended Format: Considering the depth and breadth of topics covered, extending the sprint to four days with a less intensive daily schedule would provide breathing room between sessions, allow for more reflection time, and potentially increase overall retention and application of learned concepts.
- Broader Access: There is potential to create an online version of the sprint, complete with step-by-step guidance and worksheets, tohelp scale the impact and reach more organizations globally.
Final Reflections
This design sprint in Bangalore demonstrated the immense potential of bringing tech industry best practices to the impact sector. By fostering collaboration across different sectors and geographies, we can accelerate innovation in addressing pressing social challenges.
I felt incredibly energized by this experience, learning from and exchanging ideas with all the participants. It emphasized the importance of fostering cross-sector collaborations and knowledge exchanges. Together, we can harness the power of technology and design thinking to create lasting, positive change in the world.
I extend my sincere thanks to Linus Wong, Jamie Walsh, and Rob On, my co-facilitators for the User Engagement Track, and to Temina Madon and Rosan Bishwakarma for inviting me to participate. Special thanks to The Agency Fund and Tech4Dev for making this sprint possible. Most importantly, I am grateful to all the nonprofit participants for investing your valuable time and resources in attending and for openly sharing your experiences and insights.
