The BBBS of NYC connects
more than 5,500 kids with
a Big to provide mentor-
ship through engaging in
various outings on a
biweekly cadence.
The Challenge
One of the challenges Bigs face when planning new outings with their Little
Brother or Sister is coming up with creative and affordable ideas. Recognizing
this challenge, BBBS started to develop a mobile application, called GoBig, that
would enable mentors to select more meaningful outings and create a vehicle
for regular communication between the organization’s volunteers and social
workers.
To complete this app development project, which is so strategic to its mission,
BBBS of NYC reached out to AWS for help. Given the partnership of Cloud
Technology Partners (CTP) with AWS, and personal BBBS connections already
present within our organization, a group of employees volunteered to take
action on the BBBS of NYC project, offering time and resources to further
develop the GoBig application on a pro bono basis.
Laying the Groundwork
Taking the handoff from AWS, CTP started by designating a project team that
included hand-raisers across the company, as well as members of our leader-
ship team. Throughout the development effort, colleagues from the UI/UX
team, database specialists and app engineers joined the effort, working after
hours and weekends to deliver a world-class solution to BBBS.
The CTP team took the basic functionality of the GoBig app already in use and
further developed it according to the nonprofit’s future vision. BBBS of NYC
turned over the database and code supplied by its original vendor, and CTP
built on top of it, improving the performance and adding new features.
20 | THE DOPPLER | SUMMER 2018