JP4 Foundation

Overview

The mission of the JP4 Foundation is to enrich the lives of youth in underserved communities through healthy activity, healthy meals and healthy relationships. JP4 wants to get into more schools and have more time with students. However, the current process for contacting schools inefficient and ineffective in expanding JP4’s after-school program.

We developed a touchpoint design strategy that JP4 can implement starting this year to expand into more schools, and I prototyped a timeline and tracking tool to support the strategy.

✴️ Impact Statement

🙎🏼‍♂️ My Roles

UX Researcher, UX Designer

🛠 Tools

📈 Methods

Pen and paper
Google Sheets
Figma
Premiere Pro

Competitive analysis
Secondary research
Stakeholder interview
Touchpoint strategy map
Prototyping
Video presentation

🔎 Identifying Pain Points

Our team approached this problem through two main methods: a deep dive on secondary research and a stakeholder interview.

JP4 had lots of research that was conducted by a previous UX team, but they didn’t know what to do with it. I combed through this research and pulled out insights relevant to our target group of school leaders and decision makers.

I also conducted my own secondary research on after-school program funding options. While doing my research, I learned that most schools understand the funding options available to them. What would be more helpful for JP4 is understanding when in a school’s process funding gets approved. So I pivoted to instead focus on the funding timeline for schools. I found that in Minnesota, all school budgets are approved in June. This insight, though small, greatly informed the next steps in developing our touchpoint strategy map.

Secondary Research

Some notes from my deep dive research

We then interviewed the Executive Director of JP4 to gain insight into the current process and pain points from JP4’s perspective. We learned that the Executive Director is a team of one, and heard his struggles with his overflowing responsibilities across all facets of the organization. The key takeaways from the interview were:

  • The current mode of working is day-by-day, with no time to plan longer term strategy.

  • JP4 wants tangible steps and an action plan that can be enacted now.

  • JP4 doesn’t have trouble selling their program to schools, but they need to get their foot in the door.

Stakeholder Interview

Some notes form the stakeholder interview

🧱 Building a Strategy

Having identified the problem, our team created a guiding strategy statement to inform our work:

“All user experience touchpoints for JP4 will help school leaders and decision makers to feel supported and invested (literally and emotionally) so that they are able to offer a high quality after school program to meet kids’ academic, physical, and social/emotional needs.

By focusing on strategic marketing to schools and planning for more funding, we hope to see a change in more schools, more money, more time, and efficiency for JP4.”

Despite the strategy statement, we struggled to wrap our heads around the touchpoint strategy. We had a sense of the flow, key moments, and touchpoints, but didn’t realize how much we could apply design thinking to the strategy itself.

The first draft of our touchpoint strategy map

After getting feedback in a critique on our early-stage touchpoint strategy map, we completely pivoted our focus and leaned into the strategy. In that critique, we were introduced to the idea of a “phase gate” for our strategy: phases of the process that had a goal that had to be met in order to move onto the next phase. At the same time, it clicked that a phase gate strategy would align perfectly within school and fiscal year time constraints. This is the shape our strategy took.

Rough sketch of our new touchpoint strategy map
Final version of our touchpoint strategy map

At a high-level, this strategy:

  • Reduces the barrier to entry for schools

  • Creates a repeatable, effective, and efficient process that anyone at JP4 can use

The strategy timeline is tied directly to the school and fiscal year, and occurs from January to June. It’s broken into three phases: Awareness, Consideration, and Commitment.

Each phase is positioned at a window in time with a goal. If the goal is met, JP4 can continue to the next phase with a school. If a goal isn’t met, JP4 can stop efforts with that school. This goal and stop sign approach maximizes JP4’s time and provides measurable benchmarks to track progress.

We developed the following tools so that JP4 could enact our strategy effectively and immediately:

  • Criteria for schools that align with JP4’s values and target demographics

  • A list of 13 schools to start targeting that fit the criteria

  • A detailed timeline of the strategy*

  • A tracking tool to help JP4 manage this process*

*I created the detailed timeline and the tracking tool.

🛠 Supporting the Strategy

Screenshot of the timelime
Screenshot of the tracking tool

I filmed and edited a 10-minute presentation video to explain our methods, strategy, tools, and next steps. This was sent to JP4 alongside the rest of the materials that we developed.

Our team filming the presentation

As JP4 grows, we have a few recommendations to make their after-school program even more appealing to school leaders, as they would increase the impact of the organization on both students and their families.

  • Implementing tutoring or homework help into the program

  • Expand programming to allow for K-1 students to join 

  • Decrease the student to mentor ratio from 2:1 to 4:1 or even 5:1

  • For any school leaders who are unsure of what JP4’s programming looks like, and if it will be a good fit for their students, consider inviting them to visit another site that is currently running the after-school program and/or offering to run a short pilot program within the school itself

  • Attend school community events to develop stronger relationships with students, their families, and school staff

⏩ Next Steps