Cultivating Innovation: Ally’s TM Studio provides empowering team training to Apparo
Apparo transforms the community and improves lives by connecting local nonprofits to technology expertise and resources that amplify their impact. They provide services to the nonprofit community through both internal Apparo resources and external skilled volunteer resources. Learn more about Apparo’s vision here.
Ally Financial’s TM Studio was devised for team members to become immersed in the needs of the consumer. The studio design is intended to drive innovative solutions. Their innovation studio at Camp North End houses the rapid prototyping and testing of new consumer banking concepts that keep Ally ahead of the curve.
Apparo is an organization that leverages corporate expertise to create vital technology and business solutions for nonprofits. They work with a wide range of communities, including grassroots nonprofits and large-scale corporations. To better identify and understand opportunities for Apparo to improve engagement experiences for their constituents, they joined forces with TM Studio to participate in an innovative Design Thinking Workshop.
Apparo’s Marketing and Development Teams visited TM Studio, where Philip Canning, Director of TM Studio, guided the team through a full day of learning the studio’s methods for empathetically identifying problems and creating innovative solutions. This team training focused on showing the Apparo team how to identify pain points and determine which problems they should be solving through real-world examples and live interview practice. After learning how to identify the right problems to solve, Phil guided the team through strategies for creating truly innovative solutions. With the help of Apparo’s Development Team, participants spent time considering the best ways to ask questions to identify constituents’ potential pain points around engagement with Apparo.
Innovative Solutions for Boosting Community Impact
Following the first training session, Apparo’s Marketing Team plans to move forward by conducting interviews with the Apparo community, utilizing strategies created and learned through the workshop. Through these interviews, the Apparo Team is hopeful they can leverage the results to identify innovative solutions that improve the constituent experience of engaging with the organization, ultimately deepening constituent relationships and strengthening their ability to amplify nonprofit missions.
- TM Studio Team: Philip Canning, Director
- Apparo Nonprofit Team: Bleema Bershad, Lauren Greene, Alyssa Maynard, Kristen Reed, Karen Rosenfeld, Brenna Kinkaid
