Scattered work, one system
STEM-ED teaches high school students to code, build, and fly drones. Its mission is "unlocking the excitement of ethical Aerospace technology," and it runs a nationwide drone competition, an aerospace ethics lab, and a residential summer camp at Saint Anselm College. More than 2,000 students have been through its programs.
Growing that is an outreach job. Schools have to be recruited, teachers and CTE directors have to be reached, youth organizations and sponsors have to be cultivated, and events have to be filled. Every season brings the next round of it. Across the country that is thousands of people, tracked in spreadsheets, inboxes, and memory. Finding the right contact meant asking a colleague. Knowing where an effort stood meant a meeting.
- One roster, filled state by stateHigh schools, youth organizations, libraries, and STEM networks, each with its town, district, type, and the person to call. New Hampshire went in first, at over 150 organizations and 350 contacts.
- A stage on every contactNot contacted, contacted, responded, meeting held, interested, committed, declined. Anyone can see where a school stands without asking.
- A board per campaignEvery new push gets an owner, its members, and its own board. People move across the stages as the work happens, and finished campaigns stay on file when the next one starts.
- A board per eventEach event runs on its own board. Every card holds the organization, why it fits, who to call there, who owns it, and the date to call.
- Follow-ups with a name on themOverdue follow-ups sit on the dashboard next to whoever owns them. Every call, email, meeting, and note is logged on the record it belongs to.
- AI research on live dataAsk for schools with robotics programs nobody has contacted, which quiet leads to re-engage and why, a draft outreach email, or grant and sponsor leads. It searches the web and reads the team's own pipeline.
- Coverage on a mapEvery mapped organization plotted on the map, so a thin patch of a state is obvious at a glance.
What changed for the team
- First state inover 150 organizations and 350 contacts loaded for New Hampshire, visible to the whole team
- Nothing lostevery call, email, meeting, and note logged on the record it belongs to, with an owner
- Every pusheach new campaign and event starts on the same system, with the last one still on file
Where it's going
New Hampshire proved the system out. The next states load into the same one, so the team is not rebuilding anything to grow. Every campaign that runs through it leaves it with more schools, more history, and better research to draw on, and the research already knows how to go find the next state's schools. The data is STEM-ED's: it loads in from spreadsheets and exports back out in full, whenever they want it. A small team gets to spend its time on students instead of on finding things.
Lightning finds the opportunities, Zenith builds the solutions, and Partnership keeps it evolving.