100 hearts and brains solving problems

December 12th 2018 | Bryan Breckenridge and Fadi Hindi

At Box.org we power how the world does more good together. We have the privilege of working with organizations that are doing monumental work around the globe. The inspiring missions and impact of these organizations drive Box | Box.org to gather every single asset group the Box ecosystem possesses and mobilize in service of the global nonprofit community.

We did just that last month, pursuing our first ever Box Global SE (Sales Engineering) Summit for Goodin San Diego, CA. Box.org and the Box SE leadership connected 100 Box sales engineers with leaders from three inspirational nonprofits -- Oxfam, Kiva & TechSoup. We discussed these organizations' missions including poverty alleviation, economic development, nonprofit digital capacity building, and also the content management challenges standing in their way. Nine teams composed of ten Boxers spent the afternoon and evening designing CCM (cloud content management) solutions for our nonprofit guests and then presented their ideas and solutions to panels of judges the following day (see the solutions linked below). We also invited nonprofit system integrators, Exponent Partners and Tech Impact, and a nonprofit ISV partner Classy, to audit and enrich the discovery and design workshops, proposal pitches and contest process.

All stakeholders involved derived value from the experience:

Nonprofit guests acquired solutions and new supporters.
Box SE's felt purpose, honed their skills and elevated their leadership.
Box Inc. amplified "Make Mom Proud" & "Blow Customer's Minds" cultural values

This fun movie trailer says it all, capturing the high energy level, the inspiration in the room, and the fun people were having!

The event

We divided 100 SE's into three rooms tackling three different problem statements for Oxfam, TechSoup, & Kiva. The nonprofit leaders presented the problem statements and each team had 15 minutes to dive into the challenges and ask key questions of each nonprofit leader in order to fully understand the problem statement before working on proposed solutions through Box and our CCM platform. The SE's then had just two hours to work on the problems and be ready to present to the broader group the next day. However, there was a little caveat behind this whole project: how do you come up with a great solution while knowing that these three organizations have a limited budget and can't simply go and buy the ideal solution they might desire. This was a challenge that was not easy to tackle!

The next day the SE teams had 15 minutes to present their key findings on the challenges and share the practical yet compelling solutions they came up with. To say we were blown away by these solutions is truly an understatement! The amount of time, effort and passion these SE's poured into their solutions was incredible.

What CCM challenges did we tackle?

The challenge areas we tackled spanned from maintaining fundraising efforts at maximizing velocity (necessitating valuable content to be accessed easily), to transforming HR teams that still rely on paper-based processes, to addressing concerns around the best governance model for system access during the ongoing rotation of volunteers.

Here are the actual challenge statements that were in play during the summit.

What Solutions did Box SE's propose?

Here are the solutions the Box SE's designed and proposed:

What we heard from participants

Here is what Dianna Langley, Director of Digital Workplace at Oxfam International, thought of the two days:

"Just to say that I have been completely blown away by this event. Over night we already put the wheels in motion to put one of the solutions offered into our pipeline, and I'm booking demos with Crooze next week as we speak. What you helped us imagine and semi roadmap in just a few short hours would probably have taken months to figure out and I know your teams have driven such value for us here. The impact of this time with Box will be huge for us and ultimately for the people we serve........p.s. I've already had one Boxer reach out to me personally via email to volunteer to "to see this through all the way" with us... What a flippin win!"

Here is what Barb Shaughnessy of TechSoup shared:

"Another amazing and innovative example of Box employee engagement. Thank you Box.org for kick starting TechSoup digital transformation! Definitely one of the best corporate events I have attended."

Here is what Jeff James, a Box SE leader, said:

"So amazing!! The results exceeded our expectations and this exercise had an impact far deeper than we imagined!! A BIG thanks to Oxfam, Kiva, TechSoup and our NGO friends who joined us!"

And here is what a Box SE, Dirk Nielsen, thought:

"This was the first time I tackled a real life problem with a customer that made me think outside the box and actually use the creative side of my brain. For once I couldn't just throw money at the problem or tell the customer to purchase another Box add-on, rather I actually had to come up with a solution that was practical and efficient at the same time."

We at Box.org enjoyed every minute of the process and can't wait to build on the event moving forward.

Key take-aways

Every stakeholder group won this week. Our nonprofit partners left San Diego with content solution insights and tangible go-forward plans in key program, funding and admin areas. The Box SE's learned volumes about inspiring nonprofit orgs and and why solving technical challenges is so critical (at a human and business level). Box.org gained version 1.0 of a Box Nonprofit Cloud Content Management (CCM) Roadmap for the thousands of nonprofits we already support and the millions we will support. Finally, Box Inc. created a purposeful experience aligned with our "Make Mom Proud" value that participants won't soon forget.

What's next?

Soon we will be adding additional background on the problem statements and valuable solutions in our online nonprofit community so that other nonprofit customers can utilize these best practices. The SE leadership team has offered to keep the pro-bono train running by creating sign-up sheets and asking the SE team to donate more of their time and skills to implement these solutions with Oxfam, Kiva, & TechSoup. The Box.org team will continue to create more skill-based volunteering opportunities that will increase employee engagement tenfold in terms of satisfaction and value creation, and they will work on driving the roadmap for Good we secured in these couple days. Lastly, Box Inc. will continue to treat all our customers, big or small, with the upmost respect, and continue to work every day to blow each and everyone of our customers' minds.

We proudly donate and discount Box CCM for nonprofits at Box.org.

#MoreGoodTogether

Bryan & Fadi