Re-envisioning community engagement
| Challenge | A non-profit organization, providing desperately needed support and resources for people with Parkinson’s, seeks to better engage the newly diagnosed and meaningfully reach the Parkinson’s community in general. |
| What’s wrong with that? | – Limited insight as to why existing efforts to reach the target audience were failing – An exhausted, volunteer organizing board already stretched thin keeping day-to-day operations running – Oh, and this was during the height of the COVID 19 pandemic lockdown |
| Innovation services delivered | Applying Design Thinking virtually delivered: Actionable insights into underlying challenges, 6 concepts for a new engagement model, 2 prototyped, tested and implemented solutions, and a roadmap for the rest … all done virtually over 9 90-minute sessions while in COVID lockdown. |
Context
Oxford Parkinson’s is a highly respected team with a very committed organizing group, most of whom have Parkinson’s. They felt they were not reaching the newly diagnosed and in particular the less privileged demographics. The result was that those that were in need of and could have benefited from their resources, services and, perhaps most importantly, connection to their own community, were not. This was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which only served to isolate those most in need of support and community even more.
Oxford Parkinson’s wanted to find a way to build new relationships with those in need such that sufferers and others could benefit from their deep well of services, see the organization as a safe and trusted partner, and connect with a supportive community.
Approach
Working with the Oxford Parkinson’s organizing board, we started by getting a virtual focus on the problem:
- Brought the organizing board together to dig into their current situation and understand the challenges from their perspective.
- Prepared and organized the board to conduct interviews with people with Parkinsons, their carers, Physicians, and other health care providers. Together, evaluated results to discover patterns and motivations.
- Defined a problem area to focus on, generated solution ideas and narrowed to 6 viable and related concepts.
- Selected 2 concepts to start with; prototyped and tested these in the field and with the Parkinsons community; put these concepts into action.
- Created a roadmap incorporating all 6 solution concepts and a path to implmentation.
Impact
Discovery and Insight: This effort coalesced a spectrum of challenges across each aspect of the Parkinson’s community – health care providers, carers, family members, the national organization and other supporting entities, as well as people with Parkinson’s.
Service Innovation: The generation of 165 ideas were turned into 6 full solution concepts, two of which were prototyped, tested and are being implemented.
Process Evolution: Based on their experience in this process, the organization decided to “embed the Design Thinking way of working in everything we do”.
Team Enthusiasm & Engagement: Inspired this group to look at their challenge and solving it in a new way. The direct interaction with other sufferers, carers and physicians energized this group and made the entire experience joyful.
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