Cultivate International

The Challenge

Elaine had worked in NFP for years and had seen a reoccurring problem working with developing countries. The solutions were always coming from developed countries. In the disadvantaged communities she worked in, there was a perception that the solutions to their problems came from an external source—perpetuating the belief that the ones who can make a difference are not them.

Elaine had the idea to empower community insiders. These people had cultural intelligence, passion, commitment, and local knowledge. The things they lacked could be learned, such as resources, a network, and knowledge or technical skills.

To be eligible for the program, these community insiders must identify as a community insider in a community they want to contribute to. They want to do something charitable for their community such as a social enterprise, school, feeding program or tutoring, etc.

Initially, Elaine anticipated delivering her courses manually, face to face but soon realized that this was not a scalable option. She needed a training solution that could scale easily, could be accessed by anyone, anywhere, and the course materials could be revisited as a central repository for learners to refer back to.

She discovered that bite-size content delivered frequently was a better way to teach/learn. Essentially an authoring tool/LMS was the solution.

The Solution

The Cultivate team had spent about 12 months searching for a solution. Elaine was the champion who undertook the search for a platform. 50% were outside their price range. They tried Moodle for a brief period of time, but found that the user experience was not suitable for their learners—it wasn’t intuitive or easy to use.

They conducted free trials with a few solution providers such as Talent LMS and Learn Dash. When they came across Coassemble, they did a free trial and immediately knew that the price point, user experience, and features would work well for their organization.

Cultivate International uses Coassemble’s authoring tool to create bite-size training content, quiz their learners on the content. The all in one solution allows Elaine to share the training she creates with her learners, train them, assess their learner’s knowledge and report from within a single platform.

The Results

Cultivate International has seen great results from their work to date. Elaine Learner reports allow them to check-in and keep an eye on progress and participation – “It helps me to see problems before they become an issue”.

The community insiders they teach report greater confidence, which is a key issue. They have also seen greater financial results, with a roughly 25% increase in donations for community insiders that have undertaken the program.

The program also contributes to a great community impact. One of their community insiders in Zambia has been empowered by the program and has started a school in Zambia educating 50 children.