At Raise Your Hands, we work with our company partners to innovate in this space, as part of the Dot Impact programme. We look beyond more traditional volunteering days, offering experiences that have real-world impact but are also tailor-made to meet social impact goals.

As part of our partnership with hedge fund Marshall Wace (MWAM), we ran a hackathon to solve an existing business problem at one of the RYH charities, Dandelion Time.

Below we break down the process in more detail.

The process

Dandelion Time provided a brief of a real-world business problem they wanted to streamline. We sat down with senior decision makers at MWAM to pin down their goals and desired outcomes for their social impact work, and broader objectives across the organisation.

The idea of a hackathon was born.

The charity brief

• Create a tech solution to align admin processes for families going through their nature-based therapy programmes
• Provide an immersive and engaging online environment for service-users, building a sense of belonging and keeping families and DT connected

The company brief

• Introduce new starters at MWAM to the company’s social impact
• Add a meaningful project to their induction, with an opportunity to demonstrate skills and work together as a team

Outcome

Marshall Wace interns worked together to map out the user experience of an app, the front end design and how it would integrate with existing Dandelion Time systems.

The result was presented to Dandelion Time and the design refined following feedback from the charity.

The participants were praised for closely following the brief, sharing their technical expertise and being sensitive to the vulnerable nature of the service users.

For more information on how to engage your staff with your social impact objectives, take a look at our Dot Impact programme.