Worldwide, 131 million children are not in school—more than half are girls. In many countries, girls drop out before they reach the 6th grade. Girl Up aims to eliminate the many barriers that can prevent girls from reaching the classroom. As an organization with a global mission, they needed a single solution to help them manage multiple programs, in multiple languages with applicants in all corners of the world.
Overview
Girl Up was founded by the United Nations Foundation in 2010 and is an initiative supporting United Nations agencies that focus on adolescent girls. Their development programs have supported 75,000 girls through 4,000 clubs in nearly 125 counties, and all 50 U.S. states. They are inspiring a generation of girls to be a force for gender equality and social change. Girl Up is committed to bridging the gender gap and breaking down common barriers by implementing a diverse set of programs, including scholarships.
Challenge
Supported by partners and sponsors, Girl Up wanted to launch a new 2020-2021 Scholarship Fund to honor young leaders’ unwavering commitment to making the world a better place for every girl, everywhere. In its first year, the Fund would need to support 20 Girl Up members in their pursuit of higher education.
With limited resources to focus on the design, development and launch of a new scholarship, Girl Up needed a single digital solution to host multiple applications in multiple languages. The Girl Up team also required a solution that provided transparency into the entire process, ensuring they could keep a pulse check on the experience of each and every applicant. And, to do all this would require an experienced, technology forward partner. They found that partner in Kaleidoscope.
“Every organization we work with gives us a chance to make a difference in someone’s life,” said Greg Dehn, Founder & CEO, Kaleidoscope. “Girl Up is one of those organizations that reminds me why I started this company. We couldn’t be more proud to support young women across the globe with Girl Up.”
Solution
Kaleidoscope provided know-how, helping to incorporate learnings from the launch of thousands of scholarships into Girl Up’s design and launch. With a single digital solution supporting a branded experience from application to third party contributions through the review and selection and, ultimately, the disbursements of funds to scholars. Kaleidoscope provided the Girl Up team with real-time transparency into the machinations of their program.
Results
Keeping a pulse on the experience of applicants is key, and on Kaleidoscope, Girl Up elevated the experience for all participants in their inaugural scholarship program. Over 7,000 applicants rated their application experience a 9/10. With Kaleidoscope’s ease of implementation and configurability, Girl Up mitigated delays in the development of their program by simply adding or removing key features as their ideas changed and the team adapted to program feedback. The ease of configuring the review board module and scoring rubric supported the selection work of 45 volunteers and collection of more than 64,000 score records… all online!
If you’d like to learn more about how you can also streamline your review board process, check out this article. Interested in launching your scholarship program with Kaleidoscope? Schedule a demo, let’s get started!
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