Organization: Minnesota Afterschool Advance, a collaboration between Youthprise and the Venn Foundation
Founders: Matt Norris, Jeff Ochs, and Marcus Pope
Timing: Spring 2020
Minnesota Afterschool Advance helps low-income Minnesota families use the powerful but underutilized K-12 Education Tax Credit to pay for out-of-school time programs like tutoring, music lessons, art classes, and driver’s ed along with distance learning devices like Chromebooks.
Company “Do Good”
As a nonprofit program, our mission is 100% about helping low-income students access out-of-school time programming and computer devices.
Overview
When COVID hit, we were met with the opportunity to support the Minnesota Afterschool Advance program administered by Youthprise. They, and Indie Do Good, had to act quickly to meet the critical, time-sensitive demand to provide computers for virtual learning for racially diverse, low-income and indigenous school children. We are proud to continue to support this initiative, and others from MAA and Youthprise, to work help achieve equity with, and for, Minnesota’s disadvantaged youth.
Situation
When COVID hit, we were met with the opportunity to support the Minnesota Afterschool Advance program administered by Youthprise. They, and Indie Do Good, had to act quickly to meet the critical, time-sensitive demand to provide computers for virtual learning for racially diverse, low-income and indigenous school children. We are proud to continue to support this initiative, and others from MAA and Youthprise, to work help achieve equity with, and for, Minnesota’s disadvantaged youth.
Challenge
When MAA was founded in 2018, we were solely focused on helping families pay for out-school time programming. After modest growth our first two years, the program was really ramping up when the pandemic hit in March 2020 and all the afterschool activities shut down. In a quest to remain relevant and help families in need during the pandemic, we pivoted to using the same tax credit we used to pay for activities to offer Chromebooks instead to facilitate the transition to distance learning. In the first 48 hours we offered Chromebooks, we received more applications than we did in all of 2019 combined!
Our initial plan was to receive a Chromebook order, go to a website like Amazon or Best Buy, find an affordable Chromebook, and have it shipped directly to the family. We did our best using this process for a couple days before buckling under the combined pressures of order demand, frequent stock outs at B2C retailers, and shipping headaches. With applications continuing to grow exponentially, we knew we needed to build our own Chromebook supply chain overnight. We were able to find a bulk supplier of Chromebooks, but we needed a partner who could receive the pallets of Chromebooks, break them down, and drop ship them to individual families. We received a referral to Indie Do Good. We quickly interviewed them and loved their responsiveness and the socially-centered business model. Within a few days, our supply chain was up and running to get Chromebooks rapidly into the hands of waiting students. In total, we shipped over 1,300 Chromebooks to over 200 Minnesota cities that first year with Indie Do Good.
Since then, we have also called upon Indie Do Good to assist with an incredibly complex annual mailing project. As our program has grown, it’s no longer feasible for us to complete the project in house. Adding to the challenge is that the mailing involves very sensitive information. Indie Do Good has been able to handle this project professionally and responsibly to ensure the right information gets to the correct family.
Quantifying Success
Indie Do Good allowed us to respond to a 3400% increase in applications from 2019 to 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. While Chromebooks remain a key offering of our program, our shipping volume did decrease in 2021 as distance learning wound down. However, overall program participation nearly doubled. This growth was largely driven by families who first discovered MAA because of the Chromebooks and are now using it to pay for activities like tutoring, driver’s ed, or music lessons. Because Indie Do Good helped us meet families’ immediate needs in a time of urgency during the pandemic, MAA is now a trusted partner for many families.
What have you been able to focus on to GROW?
We’re a youth development nonprofit, not experts in logistics. By handling a significant portion of our Chromebook supply chain, Indie Do Good has allowed us to focus on what we do best: reaching out to students and families in need and serving them. We can spend our time out in the community sharing with families about our offerings and know with confidence that, if they go to our website and order a Chromebook, there’s going to be one on their doorstep just a few days later.
Recognition Receieved
The story of our work in the pandemic was featured in a podcast: https://thriveconnectcontribute.com/marcus-pope-and-matt-norris-youthprise/
We came to Indie Do Good at a time of extreme urgency. We needed to build a supply chain from scratch virtually overnight to meet the rapidly evolving needs of the families we serve. Indie Do Good immediately stepped in and allowed us to achieve our mission and create tremendous impact for students and their families all across the state.