SACU Student in Uniform
SACU is an NGO, a non-profit and a charity focused on advancing education for the vulnerable children in Buundo, Uganda.
Vision - SACU is a brand you wear on your sleeve. SACU members and donors are always made aware of the issues SACU faces. They are known not solely for their religious affiliation, but known because they are with it and they care.
Approach - as SACU’s services are analyzed, Service-Sets are defined to catalyze business development and improve customer experience.
SACU Working Blueprint
Interventions on SACU are indicated on a living blueprint below by means of colored ellipses:
Set 1 - green, Three Signals.
Set 2 - blue, Standardize Entry Points.
Set 3 - pink, Breakout Business Layer.
Set 4 - yellow, Optimization.
Problem One
While the organization's mission to get rural children in school was clear, the personal outreach SACU was known for lacked professional engagement-support materials and processes.
Service Set 1 ~ Three Signals
Logo update, Campus plan, Product update
These interventions were identified as important signals to potential stakeholder interactions.
Logo update.
Prior to this update, SACU operated with a number of different logos.
Task: Merge logos and spark organizational unity through brand unity.
Campus Plan.
While SACU had passionate forbearers, there was no plan to show potential donors that explained how the school might develop.
Task: Supply a simple, yet articulated vision for development fundraising.
Consultant on Project - Christi Fragale, PE.
Plan, derivation key frames
Cultural and environmental dimensions of sustainability were considered as physical and behavioral conditions were observed on site.
north elevation, colonnade sketch and facade detail
Product update.
While many philanthropists were attracted to SACU for it’s educational mission and community-focused relief activities, without efforts to raise funds apart from donations, SACU appeared to be unsustainable.
Task: Acknowledge the economic dimension of sustainability. Signal worthiness to potential donors by showing that SACU is developing funds for itself through business.
Solution: SACU was poised to augment and scale its existing pop-up maker workshops in order to meet the needs of American retailers. A new bead design that would differentiate SACU beads from others was proposed using a locally understood bead-making process.
Project held for organizational readiness on-site.
Service Set 2 ~ Standardize Entry Points
Website, Style guide, Process guidelines
With the first round of key interaction-support artifacts developed, a consistent digital experience that was also tied to internal operations was required to scale engagement with SACU.
Website.
A means of communicating SACU’s competence, that would allow donors to learn about SACU at scale was required—a means that did not require direct communciation with SACU staff or a site visit to Uganda.
Task: Set up a new website that can connect with a modern donors.
Style guide.
In light of variable communication styles, rules of engagement were required to streamline how current and potential donors experience SACU.
Task: Create an expected means of communciation for current and potential donors.
Solution: SACU - Style guide and Voice of SACU (VOS) document, VOS not shown.
Process Guidelines.
While the other interventions in this Service Set focus on improvements to Customer Experience through visual design, there was also a clear need to tie those aspects of engagement to internal operations.
Task: Standardize campaign planning and website contribution processes for existing staff and future volunteers.
Problem 2.
As SACU grew, concerns around scale, efficiency and organizational risk became more present. Without a clear design strategy for the business, near-term projects and investments, patterns of work that develop could be easily disrupted or lower the quality of SACU’s customer experience.
Service Set 3 ~ Breakout Business Layer
Charity Strategy and website
Charity Strategy
While many were giving to SACU out of the goodness of their hearts and were fueled by personal connections to SACU staff, a clear next step for SACU was attaining charitable status. This would bring new processes and expectations of operations as well as tax benefits to current donors and new higher-profile donors.
Task: Help frame and guide the business through the application development process as well as outline and clarify the new processes and criterion that SACU would need to adhere to as an approved charity.
Strategy: SACU’s aim is to increase access and, through that access, advance education. SACU’s bursaries and scholarships for vulnerable children are a vehicle for educational improvement.
Behavior change is at the core of our strategy; We fund opportunity, and those opportunities increase capability, for students and schools.
Charity Website
With the education aspect of SACU’s work being formalized through the expectations of a charity, SACU needed a way to communicate this delineation.
Solution: Provide a new charity-website that communicated SACU’s refined educational vision for application adjudicators and donors.
Service Set 4 ~ Optimization
Coaching and Tooling, Design Engagement and Analysis
With key aspects of the SACU experience refined along with the next layer of business, enabling backstage improvements to both the internal experience of operations and customer experience drew into focus.
Coaching and tooling.
Task: Enable internal staff with operational guidance, new tools and the insight to use those tools effectively.
Design Engagement
As the business grows, the potential for Service Sets becomes more complicated. Guiding operations and proposing areas of consideration helped prime SACU staff for a more robust and faster means of decision-making.
Task: Match shifting visions for SACU with a process development trajectory. Continue readying staff for more efficient design-based decision-making.
A mix of surveys, in-person participatory design practices and white-boarding tools are used to facilitate dialogue and document agreement around problem statements, work briefs and solutions. With more concrete documentation and consensus building measures—Design Engagement—the details of processes and buy-in into such helps ground the complexity of SACU operations - it’s current state and where improvements should be made.