I was recruited by the Student Engagement team at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, to help design a toolkit for supporting students at Georgetown University better navigate the Social Impact field.
Social Impact is an emerging field, and deserves our attention. With that comes the challenge of clearly defining what it is, and how can people aspiring to succeed in this field do so.
Research Process
Motivated by students' current experiences with Social Impact, the team conducted interviews and discovered key insights and pain points that we aimed to address. So the first step in this challenge, was to actually understand the field, the context and the system in which the navigation ocurred.
We started by doing a landscape analysis. I wanted to learn:
- how social impact was defined
- what were the characteristics of a social impact leader
- what tools and methodologies are used to measure learning outcomes
- what were the different products and services offered
We conducted some interviews with leaders, and organizations leader in the field. Some of the findings let us to ideate the potential definition of a Social Impact Leader, and framework for helping students navigation.
Current vs. Future state analysis: Summary
Understanding the current painpoints, and comparing them to where we wanted to go in terms of supporting students discover, learn, and explore the field, was key in coming up with the definition of a Social Impact Leader.
The definition and skillset
“Social Impact Leaders at The Beeck Center are committed to finding effective solutions in service of the common good. They think and act differently to understand and address complex problems affecting communities around the globe. Social Impact Leaders stay grounded and have the confidence to embrace uncertainty.
Why? Because they know that they have the skills, knowledge, resources and support systems necessary to take risks and challenge the status-quo. Social Impact Leaders practice constant discernment to ensure that each action they take is guided by their core values. Their north star is making a positive, lasting impact on our world”
Developing an assessment tool
Ok, so now what? Now that students know what they need to become Social Impact Leaders, how can we help them learn if they have the right skills?
We decided to develop a diagnostic questionnaire in order to provide students with a guidence for understanding and assessing their own skillset.
Take a look at it on page 9!
Social Impact Leader Skillset | Credits: Céline Chieu
Alumni Interviews
Additionally, as part of the navigation tool, we wanted to understand the Alumni journeys, and gather feedback and recommendations to pass on to the future generations.
The information was clustered, and later embedded in the toolkit as part of the Mythbuster Section and Alumni Profiles.
Testing the prototype
We then decided to test the first prototype at the new students orientation!
Explore the prototype here!
Ideation Process
The following images show the design process I went through in order to design the toolkit experience. They include mapping the skillset through the various research methods I conducted (i.e., interviews, landscape analysis, benchmarking), storyboards, journey maps, and more!
