By Sam Dorman
I've had the good fortune to be involved in some great technology projects over the years, for some great causes.
"The Rucksack" -- a cutting-edge project that I led recently for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) -- is an especially powerful example of an organization using technology in a strategic and transformative way.
The Rucksack website enables IAVA to efficiently run a massive member rewards program that benefits members and drives new membership. It's a force.com site, meaning it's built right on top of IAVA's salesforce.com database, so it can leverage all of the power of the Salesforce platform.
To help share the story, I've put together a behind-the-scenes video tour of the Rucksack. It describes the project from more of a strategic perspective than a technical one. My hope is to help organizational leaders understand how -- when planned and executed right -- technology can help extend an organization's reach, support its staff, and further its mission.
In addition to the success stories mentioned in the tour, the statistics tell an equally impressive story. Those stats include:
- Membership growth rate increase post-launch: 5X
- New veteran members since launch: 38,413
- New requests for corporate and organizational partnerships through Rucksack site: 73
Even with a very high bar for membership (members must submit a copy of their military discharge paperwork) IAVA’s confirmed veteran membership experienced a dramatic 5X increase with the launch of The Rucksack.
Of course, this project was only possible because of IAVA's dedication to continuously improving their systems and technology, a project we began more than a year earlier. That takes an ongoing commitment of time, energy, and resources in order to be successful.
Yet the payoffs can be immense. That fact is evident when IAVA's Daniel Atwood, their Director of Digital Engagement, describes the transformation they've experienced compared to when we began working together:
"Big picture, this has opened up a whole bunch of opportunities that we hadn't been able to imagine in the past, and now are quite literally driving the organization. It let us work more effectively and communicate with our members. It let us formalize business practices and processes that in the past were all over the place. It is taking us away from being reactive and using available tools, to proactively building the infrastructure we need to interact effectively with our members over the long term."
That pretty much says it all.
Sam Dorman is one of the social change sector's go-to leaders, helping organizations skillfully navigate the waters of technology and engagement. Sam provides technology leadership to increase an organization's capacity and expertise, helping organizations develop innovative strategies and the cutting-edge implementations to pull them off. After years in the nonprofit trenches at both a staff and executive level, Sam focuses on solutions with wide internal adoption and deep external impact.