No Kid Hungry

PARTNER: Share Our Strength

GOAL: Discover alternative opportunities to generate new revenue and engage a new generation of supporters for a leading nonprofit

APPROACH: As nonprofits move beyond foundation grants and major giving to more diversified revenue streams (with the greater promise of stability), there is an increased need for them to become more adaptable and responsive to change and more open to industry collaboration. At the same time, millennials, widely considered “the impact generation,” have become active leaders in reshaping advocacy, engagement, and philanthropy by continuously investing their time and dollars in social causes.

The organization, Share Our Strength, partnered with Parsons students on a semester-long collaboration to bring together these two major trends and apply design thinking towards developing multi-platform opportunities for engaging and generating new revenue from a new generation of supporters.

OUTCOME: The challenge was to focus on the No Kid Hungry campaign, which addresses issues of food insecurity and access to meals for children. Three teams of Parsons students developed strategic proposals for extending the campaign’s impact while employing new technologies for engaging millennials.

Implementing human-centered design thinking, students approached the project by leading with empathy and intention. Each team created an exciting new concept with original content, carefully assessing the areas of opportunities, operational requirements, key stakeholders, risks to be mitigated, and process for implementation of their ideas.

One team developed a revenue-generating concept for a multi-channel partnership that taps into the interests and influence millennials have in the food and media industries. Another team proposed expanding the Friendsgiving campaign popular among millennials, integrating brand development, communication tools, and experiential design. The third team reimagined a system for delivering food to children in the summer, when they may not have access to free school meals, looking at ways to reduce the transportation burden, reduce the social stigma, increase community participation, and integrate technology into the process.

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