Introduction
Towards the end of 2021, Capco Impact Consulting Group partnered with Year Up on a 4 month North American pro bono project.
Year Up is a national non-profit with a mission to “close the opportunity divide” in the US. Year Up trains and develops diverse group of young adults ages 18-24 for their first opportunities into entry level corporate roles within business and software capabilities. The students receive an opportunity to participate in a 1-year intensive program with 6 months of training. At the completion of the program, students are transitioned into a 6-month sponsored internship by a corporate partner.
Capco has developed a strong relationship with Year Up since 2020 through a strategic corporate internship program. The students are provided the opportunity to work within the digital, technology & strategic practices at Capco, which first piloted in New York. Beyond the internship, Capco CSR also partnered with Year Up to host five volunteer events which is where Capco saw new opportunity to extend the partnership to a 3-4 month pro-bono project.
The project was in collaboration for the development of an alumni catalog as Year Up has a large alumni network over 20,000+ with information spread across multiple data sources. As a result, there was no singular database to consolidate all information and provide visibility into the content in a way that was easily searchable and translated into presentable formats. Year Up required a database/tool which can host all consolidated alumni data, and which is scalable for growth. Capco team helped provide a dedicated project team to support Year Up with analysis, documentation, and recommendation for an alumni catalog.
About Year Up
Year Up is a non-profit organization based in the USA with the mission of closing the Opportunity Divide by ensuring that young adults gain the skills, experiences, and support that will empower them to reach their potential through careers and higher education. YearUp
What We Did
Our Capco team utilized their unique skills and research to deliver the following key deliverables: Documenting Catalogue Goals, Outlining Data Sources, Building a Primary Solution List, and Finalizing the Tool Recommendation.
· Document Catalog Goals - Capco team collaborated with Year Up to develop, collect, and document requirements to define goals for the alumni catalogue
· Outline Data Sources - Capco captured and refined data sources, developed a comprehensive list of high-level requirements, and developed a data dictionary with data attributes for their CRM
· Build Preliminary Solutions List - Capco researched multiple vendors, facilitated demonstrations, and help grade each tool based on common criteria the team developed.
· Finalize Tool Recommendation - Capco proposed the top solution and near and long term plans Year Up should move forward with. A near term plan was to continue utilizing their CRM as usual in tandem with the new proposed tool. For the long term, due to their budget, Capco proposed expanding and completing some customizations to their CRM to better fit their needs and consolidate their data.
How We Did It
Throughout the project, Capco and Year Up worked closely together on the following key tasks:
· Capco split requirements gathering into two major streams to focus on defining detailed requirements for Year Up from both a business and data perspective.
· Capco developed business goals and requirements by analysing Year Up’s current state and resources to their desired end state. This was also compared against their budget to identify what should be done in the near term and what should be feasible in the future.
· Capco analysed Year Up’s data requirements, data sources, and gaps. Once Year Up’s current state was clear, the Capco team was able to develop a data dictionary using excel for greater ease of reference. Expertise outside of the team was also utilized to provide valuable advice around data management and potential improvements to their CRM tool.
· Capco team utilized various sources to conduct research tools that met Year Ups requirements and budget. As a guide, Capco used selection criteria to ensure all vendors were evaluated on equal terms, as well as provide support for any proposed solutions. We connected with over 4 vendors and completed 3 demos to further evaluate solutions that had potential.
· Capco team prepared a final presentation with Year Up to showcase the capabilities of Year Up’s preferred vendors and discuss a plan for next steps to execute the proposed solution.
Results
Our Capco Team consisted of Nick Carrillo, Amandeep Bhinder, Sonia Alexander, Ryan Reid, and Ryan Finch. Their work was well received as noted by Gina Allen, Director, Alumni Events & Movement Building:
“We appreciate your leadership and commitment to our project which we’ve now named the Alumni Ambassador Hub. Our team was wonderful! Amandeep Bhinder, Nicholas Carrillo, Ryan Finch, Ryan Reid and Sonia Alexander were dedicated to the project, understood our needs at a detailed level and made great suggestions as the project unfolded. We thought we had the project pretty well defined before kick-off, but the Capco team really helped us enhance our end product. Matt has worked in technology consulting and knows how hard it can be to keep a pro bono team intact throughout a project. We were very impressed that the team was engaged throughout and the range of skill sets was very complementary. As a non-profit, we often have to do things on a tight budget and having your team as a resource was a huge benefit. This work will not only benefit our team, but it will provide considerable value for many of our functional teams.
Looking forward to bring on more future (pro bono) projects to Capco!”