University of Chicago

Equipping MBA alumni with tools and strategies to lead nonprofit organizations.

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challenge

The alumni network from the world-renowned Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago is an affiliation of business leaders who are driven, wildly intelligent, accomplished, and committed to making the world a better place. The Rustady Center for Social Sector Innovation, a research and resource center within Booth, supplied these alumni with academically-rigorous resources and connection opportunities. Seeing an opportunity to better engage with and support their alumni in their efforts to add value to nonprofits, The Rustady Center reached out to Desklight to help them better understand their audience and to design new ways to connect their alumni with powerful resources.

University of Chicago

process

The Desklight team conducted stakeholder interviews with Booth alumni who held a wide array of expertise and experience. Our research revealed that the existing nonprofit toolkit supplied good information but was largely inactionable. We first designed a strategy to reorganize existing toolkit content to make it more accessible. In doing this, we uncovered the opportunity to design a toolkit to help new directors add value within their first 90 days of board service, and to help them build momentum as they moved from a place of foundational understanding to strategic engagement.

Our contributions included:

  • Primary and secondary research
  • Data synthesis and insight findings
  • Curriculum design
  • Design strategies
  • Website design
  • User testing

Inspire progress

Outcome

The result is a 2-part interactive toolkit and companion workbook that lives on the Rustandy Center site. For this, we curated existing content from Booth’s network of academics and designed a new curriculum to meet the needs of essential skill-building in the areas of leadership, collaboration, communication, and DEI. The companion workbook features compelling education materials and practical exercises to engage users in a deep-thought process through active learning and reflection exercises. This toolkit empowers UChicago to continue offering value to its students after graduation. Learn more at  www.chicagobooth.edu/research/rustandy

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