Higher Purpose eliminates complex processes with Box Consulting for Good
Since its beginnings in 2016, Higher Purpose has set its sights on supporting black-owned businesses.
The Mississippi-based nonprofit has grown as a voice for business leaders by providing education, capital, and support to help local communities thrive. With its limited staff of just 11 members, Higher Purpose has made waves with solution-based community organizing that tackles generational poverty, institutionalized racism, and structural inequality. Programs span from funding and training to membership and storytelling (amplifying the voices of Black entrepreneurs through Higher Purpose Films).
Harnessing the potential of one platform
After discovering the Box Impact Fund, Higher Purpose became interested in learning more about how Box could support their work. Executive Director Dr. Tim Lampkin notes that Box protects sensitive business information, educational materials, and community stories — while minimizing online risks to critical content. Moreover, working from a secure, AI-powered platform makes collaboration easy. With the Intelligent Content Cloud, teams can achieve their goal of becoming tech savvy, using the right tools to minimize inefficiencies, setting the standard for other nonprofits in the region, and, most importantly, focusing on their mission.
Thanks in large part to Box Consulting for Good (which provides pro bono support to nonprofits through Box Consulting professional services), teams have optimized content organization, mastered best practices, and capitalized on Box integrations — all while collaborating securely. With this program, nonprofits leverage in-house expertise to advance their missions and scale their impact through the Intelligent Content Cloud. In the case of Higher Purpose, IT paved the way for a smooth migration and implementation.
A successful move to the Intelligent Content Cloud
While migrating all their content from Google Drive, Higher Purpose received Box support in the form of customized trainings. Informational sessions covered everything from admin settings to folder structures and sharing permissions. Live trainings showed teams how to mitigate data threats with Box Shield while staying compliant with Box Governance. They also discovered how to securely share content with team members, external stakeholders, community leaders, and board members. And finally, they learned that with version control, they’d never again have to spend time searching for the right iteration of a file.
Higher Purpose works very closely with its members and external vendors, so Box Relay (the workflow automation application that enables Box users to simplify content processes) was instrumental in getting up and running. Now the organization can gather information from vendors via file request, automatically create a vendor folder to store uploaded information, and apply metadata to the content for easy access and search ability.
Director of Operations Jasmine Cunningham sees Box as a “one-stop shop.” Never again, Cunningham said, will teams need to juggle siloed apps and platforms.
The team is thankful for the many hours of pro bono support and is looking ahead to set up Box Governance and Box Shield. “It was a learning opportunity for all of us at Higher Purpose, bringing tech tools that allow us to be more productive,” Lampkin said. “Being tech-forward is in our DNA and helps us support the communities we serve.”
Measures of success, following Box migration:
- 5–7 hours saved weekly
- Custom automated workflows created with Box Relay
- Seamless collaboration achieved with Box for Slack