Together for West Philadelphia
Fellow: Madison Mancino
Team: Hannah Madeya, Adam Fine, and Emily Cuccio
Community Partner
Together for West Philadelphia (TFWP) partners with healthcare systems, community-based organizations, academic institutions, and public and private stakeholders to achieve equitable health outcomes for West Philadelphians. TFWP’s vision is that every West Philadelphian has the opportunity to thrive and achieve optimal health. Together for West Philadelphia serves the entire West Philadelphia community, with a primary focus on the 19131, 19151, 19139, 19104, and 19143 ZIP codes. Together for West Philadelphia is working towards reducing health disparities, fostering collaboration, and advocating for resources, policies, and practices that benefit West Philly residents.
Design Question
Together for West Philadelphia tasked us with the challenge of helping them choose a CRM (Customer relationship management: technology used for managing all a company's relationships and interactions with audience) for newsletters, and analyzing their various social media platforms so they can improve their overall content and community engagement based on our suggestions. Our main design question became: how can we effectively increase engagement on different social media platforms for Together for West Philadelphia? We believe that Together for West Philadelphia has a strong sense of its mission and purpose, but they can improve their content in terms of variety. To really engage the community, you must consistently make yourself known on social media.
Strategic Thinking
The first thing we did was each present a different CRM suggestion so we could compile a list. A CRM is customer relationship management. As the name suggests, the software can manage engagement and interactions with the community over various platforms. TFWP was looking for a good CRM so they would be able to easily send out their newsletters’ to people who subscribed. After researching each CRM and seeing how others rated it, we concluded that Constant Contact was the best option out of all the CRMs. It offered the best price and also a discount for non-profit organizations. It also was very easy to use. The site is very similar to Squarespace which is something the TFWP team is familiar with using. We then began to look at TFWP’s mission and purpose to understand our community partner better. We did this by conducting a media analysis, researching the organizations’ Golden Circle, Social Media and Community Engagement, Comparative Media Analysis, Storytelling Strategies, and Nonprofit Story Arc. Each of these media activities allowed us to look deeper into TFWP and its social media presence and engagement. Our team was able to meet with Risa and get her feedback so we could truly understand TFWP from someone who works there and not just from how they portray themselves online.
Co-creation
We were able to collaborate with Risa Waldoks, who is the only official staff member at Together for West Philadelphia. Her official title is Acting Executive Director. Our team met with Risa over Zoom to discuss various updates and also receive feedback from Risa on our work and how we are portraying Together for West Philadelphia. Risa was able to help us better understand the mission and goals of Together for West Philadelphia. This helped us as we analyzed their social media platforms and compared them to how they want to represent themselves on social media going forward.
Results
One tangible deliverable we were able to curate with Together for West Philadelphia is a LinkTree. A LinkTree allows you to showcase various links all in one place. It is neat and user-friendly. It is not only easy for the people visiting their LinkTree, but also for Together for West Philadelphia in terms of editing and composing. Another deliverable was a definitive CRM suggestion. We started by each presenting one suggestion, and through that list, we were able to narrow it down to one CRM, which was the overall best. We were also able to provide some “plug and play” templates that are the same colors as TFWP’s logo. Our team also thoroughly analyzed all of TFWP’s social media and suggested some general tips to improve their community engagement and posts. We compiled all of our research and analysis in our Media Report. You can read our Media Report by pressing the link below. You can also learn more about Together for West Philadelphia by checking out their website, which is also linked below.