Supporting Junior Achievement Through Pro Bono Marketing and BI Consulting Services

Junior Achievement of Washington (known as “JA”) has been a partner of RedCloud for many years, with our consultants volunteering in classrooms around the Seattle area to teach JA’s business and finance curriculum to elementary students, and to help support JA’s “BizTown”, a unique marketplace where students operate a micro-economy for a day. Those experiences provide important hands-on opportunities for our team to volunteer in the community at the nexus of RedCloud’s community program: children and education.

But this year we’re taking things up a notch in RedCloud’s support of JA. While our consultants can roll up their sleeves and teach during a “JA Day'', we also saw the opportunity to keep our “consulting” hats on and dive into the operations and broader strategy of the JA organization. Kicking-off in the spring of 2023, we’re beginning a set of pro bono consulting services to help JA achieve one of its largest strategic goals: attract, retain and generally increase volunteer participation - the lifeblood of their programs. 

To that end, our RedCloud team of experts led by Senior Account Manager Scott Morton and Business Services & Intelligence Practice Lead Benny Swedberg have begun engagement with JA’s team to help in two specific areas:
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1. Bolstering JA’s volunteer marketing strategy to drive awareness and engagement with potential volunteers. 
2. Auditing and evolving JA’s volunteer marketing technology and toolset to improve efficiencies and support marketing efforts. 

Ultimately these efforts are leading the development of a go-to-market (GTM) plan that will help JA:

• Increase number of contactable volunteers in the organization’s database.
• Increases the number of volunteers per each JA event (i.e. “JA Day”, “BizTown”).
• Expand social media reach to a broader audience through like, shares, and follows.

On the tech side, the RedCloud team identified the need to improve the tools and platforms associated with JA’s Volunteer Lifecycle, and specifically the JA event check-in experience for their volunteers. Our team is currently developing a set of recommendations for an online platform or application for volunteers to:

• Manage their profile.
• Sign up for events.
• Check-in at events.
• Access live chat for support.
• Receive push notifications.
• Additional features that will help streamline the entire volunteer process. 

Lastly, our tech experts are assessing the reporting needs of JA, and how a revamped set of business intelligence reports can help leadership make decisions about volunteering needs.
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Giving back through our Community program is a core value at RedCloud and believe it’s up to each one of us to extend a helping hand when we can, whether the gesture be big or small. We’re honored to partner with JA and look forward to reporting back on the outcomes of this project!