In our latest Innovate for Impact Event, Team4Tech led experienced employee volunteers from eight companies through a design thinking process to support our Guatemala-based NGO partner, MAIA.
Design Thinking To Support an NGO’s Strategic Initiatives
During our 3-hour virtual event, Team4Tech facilitators led volunteers through a design thinking process to ideate and prototype potential solutions to MAIA’s identified design challenge: “How might we leverage technology to keep MAIA alumni engaged?”
The MAIA Impact School is Central America’s only secondary school of its scale designed for Indigenous young women from rural communities. Critically, MAIA’s post-secondary success program provides graduates of the Impact School with workplace skills training, vocational orientation, university access coaching, and internships to successfully transition to and succeed in university or the formal workplace. Expanded alumni engagement will enhance the organization’s ability to reach and engage new and returning alumni, offering vital resources including access to professional networking, workplace and university coaching, and more.
Volunteers Create Accessible, Scalable Solutions
Conducted in both English and Spanish, volunteers engaged with MAIA staff to learn more about their work to inform their responses to the design challenge.
Then, volunteers collaborated virtually in small groups, brainstorming ideas and rapidly prototyping their solutions. Participants sharpened their innovation skills, thinking on their feet under time constraints and working around named challenges the NGO is facing, including alumni’s limited internet access and geographic dispersion.
Deliverables included prototypes for:
- A private Facebook group with a scheduled content and outreach strategy, leveraging a familiar platform for MAIA staff and students
- A virtual pledge commitment program with MAIA’s business community, focusing on workforce development and mentoring
- An online learning platform with a digital learning repository including videos in Mayan and Spanish, focusing on skills and practical applications like building a CV, preparing for a job interview, workplace etiquette, and more
Volunteers reflected on how the opportunity to engage in this design thinking process challenged them, helped them build new skills, and exposed them to new ways of thinking.
[A reflection from our volunteer group] was that you don’t need a tech background to contribute [in building technological resources]. We had mostly business folks on our team, and we came up with really good solutions. The industry is kind of pivoting away from tech leading or IT solutions leading to business solutions. The business solution drives the tech solution.”
— Jeffrey Moran, Innovate for Impact Volunteer
Opportunities like this bring team members and employees together in a collaborative setting. It allows them to use their skills to drive impact while also acquiring new skills.”
— Innovate for Impact Volunteer
Our NGO participants walked away from the event excited for the new resources and inspired by the investment of the volunteers.
I loved the organization of the event, I was thinking about every detail. The continuous support with the Spanish language and the warmth of each member of Team4Tech, but also of all the participants. I loved the workshop, and above all I came away with many ideas to apply in my work. It will help me achieve successful network management and communication with the young MAIA graduates.”
— América Castro, Impact Coordinator, Launch Year Program, MAIA
Team4Tech is proud to facilitate connections between volunteers and education-focused NGOs like MAIA, improving education that ultimately prepares learners for better jobs. Our Innovate for Impact programming is just one example of how Team4Tech leverages skills-based volunteering to accelerate the impact of nonprofit organizations globally.
Our next Innovate for Impact event will take place during Global Volunteer and Earth Month on April 23, 2026. Contact our Chief Partnerships Officer at [email protected] to learn more about how your team can strengthen teamwork and collaboration, and build innovation skills by volunteering with Team4Tech.