RBC’s Raise the Grade (RTG) is the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada’s (BGCC) largest-scale youth-focused National Program. It is a multi-faceted education program that increases academic skills, high school graduation rates and access to post-secondary education for youth. The new RTG portal provides BGCC staff the support needed to independently facilitate the program and engage and inspire their youth.
The existing portal contained a wealth of resources, but it was becoming difficult to ensure that all RTG clubs were carrying out the programs as they related to the key philosophies and measures of success. There was a need to remind and place greater emphasis on the 5 RTG Pillars so that all Club staff can understand the goals and key success criteria of the program.That was our assignment and we wanted to pass with flying colours.
By remodelling the existing portal to be a more streamlined resource and onboarding tool, new Club staff and mentors can easily learn about the programs and how to facilitate them. We placed onboarding resources front and centre and combined it with a guided experience to help staff easily absorb key information and learn about program goals and objectives.
The old Raise the Grade portal grew quickly and programs were added that just weren’t being used by RTG Clubs. It was challenging to vet each program and measure their success. The new portal focused only on the most effective programs for each of the 5 RTG Pillars. Using a shallow navigation structure, staff are “one click away” from all the resources they need to bring a program to life.
We consolidated the Resources into an easy and intuitive grouping of categories. Colours, icons and a short description are used to distinguish resource types and help users to quickly find what they are looking for.
Communicating important events, activities and RTG days has never been easier and effective. A simple calendar now ensures that every evaluation survey due date, conference event and all program happenings will be top of mind at all RTG clubs.
The administration of the RTG portal relies on a small, dedicated and extremely busy BGCC team. The key was to provide an administrative backend that is intuitive to use – allowing speedy ease of publishing and management for all portal administrators so that they can do more with their time.
Being proactive is the best way to ensure that the program is on the right track, and gathering data on how the RTG program is performing is a key component to the portal. We ensured that there were tools for administrators to solicit and encourage feedback so that program performance can be easily assessed.
The facilitation of RTG youth programs are driven by resourceful and passionate BGC Club staff and mentors. Knowing that the portal connects and unites the RTG team across Canada, we provided features that opened the channels of communication and enabled their team to deploy programs, share insight, and work better together. The end result is a portal that enables staff to inspire, motivate and maximize youth engagement and mentorship, positively preparing Canadian youth for life after high school.