Foster Nation Boosts Efficiency and Builds Capacity through Box Consulting for Good

Foster Nation is filling a much needed gap in the child welfare space to support youth that are transitioning out of the foster care system. The nonprofit’s mission is to support and empower foster youth to become self sufficient adults, with the belief that those who have been through the system are more powerful than their circumstances. Their programs serve transitioning foster youth in a variety of innovative approaches. CareerX, a program in which volunteer mentors are matched with foster youth to coach on career development and essential life skills, is critical to changing the narrative of only 3% average college graduation rate for foster youth, and over 50% of unemployed and justice system-involved youth. Other programs include their Essentials Program, providing professional clothing, basic needs, and tech resources to close the digital divide, as well as their Meal Nation program where they have partnered with 57 colleges in California to provide meals to foster youth facing food insecurity.

Even though the organization has only been using Box for less than a year, the small but mighty team has already made huge improvements with how they operate. Prior to implementing Box, the organization worked in disjointed ways with no structure on security settings and the content was scattered. The growing nonprofit needed guidance on how to properly secure its highly sensitive client data and also handle the high demand for their programming. This is where the Box Consulting for Good team stepped in.

Box Consulting, Box’s in-house professional services organization, provides pro bono support to nonprofit organizations through the Box Consulting for Good program. In this program, nonprofits can leverage in-house expertise to advance their missions and scale their impact through the Box Content Cloud. The goal was to better understand how Box can further their mission, and to find answers to some of their biggest, content-centric challenges.

“It was refreshing to have the whole team behind us to setup our tech stack. It was a no brainer to bring on Box” - Maggie Lin, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Foster Nation.

The months long project had two goals: to ensure the most ideal and secure settings were setup, and train the staff on how best to take on underutilized Box features to be more efficient. Keeping sensitive client data secure is monumental in Foster Nation’s work. The Box Consulting team ensured that optimal security settings were in place, especially crucial in the work Foster Nation carries out with the vulnerable population it serves. The collaboration with staff and partners started to improve as content lived where it should be. Staff are aware of what’s going on in their programs with the quick access to content now, and can work with foster youth and their partners smoother. Onboarding of volunteers and training is now easily accessible and quickly shared, establishing the appropriate security settings.

• Outcomes of the Box Consulting project:
• Redesigned folder structure and naming convention for ease of use/collaboration
• Implemented Box Sign for signature use cases and replaced DocuSign
• Utilize Box Notes for streamlined note taking and communication across the team, and replaced Evernote
• Team members learned advanced features and best practices through in depth training

If you're working at a nonprofit and you are curious to learn more about how Box can power your work, or about Box Consulting for Good, please contact us. We'd love to connect with you!