For three years in a row, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Indiana (BBBSCI) has been recognized by the agency’s national headquarters for the strength of its mentoring programs and network. A significant contributor to this success is BBBSCI’s dedication to removing barriers to meaningful and impactful relationship building among its mentor matches (“Bigs” and “Littles”).
BBBSCI conducted a Six Sigma Match Intentionality Project aimed to improve match satisfactions and youth outcomes. The study identified 12 critical life skills and attributes (“Thriving Indicators” now known as “Little Impacts”) necessary to reach one’s full potential. As a result, BBBSCI wanted to combine this data with an actionable and adaptable tool that would help Bigs foster these attributes within their Littles.
We partnered with BBBSCI and Crafted to build The Big App. On the front end, The Big App is a mobile platform that helps mentors approach their mentoring time with greater intentionality, thanks to a framework of activities and events tied to each Little Impact. The app also serves as an information hub, storing basic profiles for each match as well as metrics around time spent towards each category.
On the back end, The Big App is a custom, data-driven dashboard that gives BBBSCI staff the ability to enter and manage activities and events, identify and analyze key performance indicators, and continually assess and interpret the collected data as Bigs and Littles build their relationship. BBBSCI leverages these key metrics to make data-driven decisions around helping match relationships thrive.
The Big App launched internally for BBBSCI in March 2016, and circulated quickly among Bigs. That summer, we were proud to join BBBSCI in showcasing The Big App at the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America National Conference. Since then, The Big App has helped support more than 10,000 mentors across nine Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies nationwide. Additionally, it has provided more than $100K in new sponsorship opportunities to BBBSCI. In 2018, The Big App was named a 2018 Indiana Innovation Award winner. In 2019, the platform was nominated for a TechPoint Mira Award.
Download the Indiana Innovation Award press release.
