Teach First NZ streamline processes with Salesforce

Teach First New Zealand are an innovative not-for-profit organisation that engages New Zealand’s top graduates and career-changing professionals in contributing to tackle one of our country’s most pressing challenges – educational inequality.

It’s a harsh reality in New Zealand that where a child is born is one of the most significant factors to determine their educational prospects. While the education system is working well for many students, thousands of students leave school each year without NCEA Level 2 (a basic indicator of achievement).

Young people from low-income households are half as likely to achieve University Entrance as those from high-income households. Our growing Māori and Pasifika communities are most disadvantaged, and the result is thousands of young New Zealanders confined to a life of unrealised potential.

Research shows that effective teachers and effective leaders are crucial to making a difference.  The Teach First NZ approach is two-fold:

1. In the short-term, Teach First NZ aim to recruit outstanding individuals to bring knowledge, energy and leadership into the classroom. In partnership with the University of Auckland, the charity prepares and places participants to teach in secondary schools serving lower decile communities for an initial two-year commitment, inspiring young people to fulfil and expand their potential.
2. In the long-term, Teach First NZ aim to build a network of leaders in education and across all fields, who are committed to addressing educational inequality. The vision is that all young people in Aotearoa New Zealand achieve their full educational potential, regardless of socioeconomic background.

The Challenge

As a relatively new NZ charity, Teach First have been focusing all their attention on their key stakeholders: teacher participants, schools, and the partner network. The participant journey - including application, placement, in-school support, and transition to programme alumni - was managed using email, calendars, spreadsheets.

The success and growth of the charity made these tools harder and harder to use efficiently. It was time to standardise processes throughout the participant journey, in order to consistently deliver a great experience for all involved.

Teach First NZ required a single view of schools, participants, and partners - to serve them effectively and gain insights to help shape the charity’s work.

The Solution

Teach First NZ had already implemented Salesforce for the management of candidate applications - but its use stopped there. In a pro-bono engagement, Fronde stepped in to assist Teach First NZ in building out the rest of the “customer” journey in Salesforce.

The new solution allows Teach First NZ staff to track the entire participant management process: as candidates become participants, as they progress through the two-year Teach First NZ programme, and finally when they become alumni.

The solution was delivered in just four weeks, using an iterative Agile approach of one week design-build-test cycles.

The Fronde team included Daniel Lund, engagement lead, Rochelle Glover, a Salesforce functional expert, and Harry Ross, a student getting work experience as part of the Fronde Cadet programme.

Specific functionality delivered included:

• Management of participant, school and partner information;
• Management of schools subject requirements;
• Matching of participants to schools;
• Tracking of agreements;
• Issue / case management;
• Online submission of mentor notes;
• And reports and dashboards to track performance.

The Outcome

Entries are now open for the 2016 cohort, and applications are coming into Salesforce.  Over the coming months Teach First NZ will select participants, match them to schools, and then deliver training before commencing their two-year programme.

Salesforce is going to make this process a lot more efficient and consistent, and the data Teach First NZ build up is going to help continually improve their services.

Shaun Sutton, Teach First NZ CEO said,

“When I saw how much had been done in a relatively short amount of time, I was gob-smacked!  We now have a central tool for managing our student participants, as well as our schools and partners.  Now we will all be working in Salesforce and I am looking forward to seeing what else it can do.  Big thanks to the Fronde team.”

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