Purpose Project

A Community Platform

At a glance

The Purpose Project (PP) helps teens find their purpose through reflection activities, which helps them come up with a project to help kick-start their passions. However, they lacked community engagement in their channels. To enhance this, we organized an event showcasing student works, encouraging feedback and connections. Additionally, my main focus was to build these features into a unified community platform, streamlining their experience.

Fostering community through connections

Project Summary

Problem

Students of the program sensed an abrupt conclusion without opportunities for continued contribution, aside from occasional volunteer requests on PP's discord channel that most alumni’s don’t know about when asked. Moreover, many fellows experienced isolation while focusing on their individual projects, with no additional guidance outside of the program.

Solution

To cultivate a stronger sense of unity, we pursued two key strategies. Firstly, we organized an event showcasing achievements from past and present students, fostering feedback and connections. Secondly, we integrated these aspects into a community platform, streamlining communication and engagement in one convenient location.

Process

To find a solution that fosters community engagement we...

We found some valuable insights!

Community Platform Experience

Connecting interests

Users can find others solving for the same problem areas as them. No more working in isolation and inject a sense of collaboration and mentorship to help answer some questions they might have along the way.

Areas of interest

Reviews

After connecting with mentors for a discussion, a notification will prompt the user to leave a review to help inform others about how the discussion helped them.

Notification Reminder

Forum that sparks inspiration

In addition to connecting to individuals, users can also post on the forum to gain more opinions at a time.

Unlock perks as you engage

To encourage user engagement, we have introduced additional perks that increase as your tier level rises. These perks range from the ability to organize your own workshops to opportunities for showcasing your work at PP events.

Goal

Increase engagement on community platform and help students receive clarity and feedback on purpose projects

Measuring success

• Number of Student-Alum connects
• Amount of reviews
• Number of discussions created

User Validation

User testing feedback

It’s convenient to find all the information on one platform.
It’s convenient to connect with mentors and to find their contacts with ease.
The feature of the forum is very useful for introverts.
It is clear whom to ask for guidance.

Learnings

Problem solve around limitations

Working alongside the developer on the current Webflow-based website provided me with the insight that not all elements can be optimized for the best solution. Often, we had to identify the next most suitable approach. While it would have been ideal to incorporate video chats and calls on the platform, our developer indicated its infeasibility. Thus, to monitor connections, we introduced a review system. Although it might not be the ultimate connection-tracking feature, it serves as a viable alternative.

Balancing business and user needs

After collecting input from different stakeholders, our initial approach was to create a community platform primarily for partners who are involved in conducting the programs. This strategy aimed to alleviate the workload of the single point of contact by enabling a Q&A system for partner inquiries. However, considering the current smaller count of partners in comparison to students, it would be more beneficial to prioritize the development of a platform for students initially.