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CBO: From 20 Years of Spreadsheets to One Connected Student Success Platform
Back to Case Studies
CBO: From 20 Years of Spreadsheets to One Connected Student Success Platform
Back to Case Studies
CBO: From 20 Years of Spreadsheets to One Connected Student Success Platform
Introduction
College Bound Opportunities (CBO) relied on spreadsheets and paper-based processes to manage participant data through their 6-year journeys towards graduation. As the program grew, maintaining accurate records, tracking student progress, and managing day-to-day operations became unwieldy.
Goal
Reduce Chronic Absenteeism by Supporting Families
Hayward Promise Neighborhood’s work sits within a broader cradle-to-career mission: ensuring kids show up, stay engaged, and succeed from early childhood through career.
But the team was confronting a root issue with cascading effects.
Chronic absenteeism is a leading indicator of literacy outcomes, graduation rates, and long-term earnings.
Their theory of change was clear.
Chronic absenteeism is not a single student problem.
Supporting the whole family helps stabilize all children in the household.
Rather than running programmatic interventions in isolation, where one organization focuses on one student at a time, Hayward Promise was coordinating a family-centered navigation model.
They launched a 50-family pilot initiative where navigators and case managers could deliver:
coaching and family outreach
referrals to services
milestone tracking
case management and follow-up
attendance monitoring through school district uploads
This work required coordination across:
Alameda County Office of Education
Hayward Promise Neighborhood (broker and backbone organization)
school district staff (attendance and records)
probation and public sector partners
4Cs of Alameda County (navigation and direct referrals)
Challenge
The Coordination Challenge
Decades of disconnected data. Participant information existed across sprawling spreadsheets, making it difficult to confidently report to funders.
Manual student tracking: Staff had to constantly update milestones, and students had no ownership over their own tasks.
Paper-based workflows created extra work and slowed down the application to onboarding timeline.
Solution
Campground Helped Hayward Promise Build a System Around Their Workflow
Hayward Promise partnered with Campground to build a secure case management and referral tracking system that worked across organizations. This was the first time the partnership had been able to collaboratively build a system to match their real-world needs, instead of forcing their program into a tool designed for a different context. The cost was a fraction of the cost of hiring a developer or vendor.
What Campground did
Campground worked alongside the organization to digitize and streamline its operations by:
Organizing and cleaning participant, alumni, and volunteer data to import it into a centralized system. Other software vendors wouldn’t touch their data.
Transforming spreadsheet trackers into assignable digital task lists that students can access and complete through their own secure portal.
Converting the paper application into an online application with a “Save Draft” feature and automated email confirmations.
Providing additional tools that quickly became part of the team's daily operations, including email communications, event management, and a job board for participant opportunities.
Introduction
College Bound Opportunities (CBO) relied on spreadsheets and paper-based processes to manage participant data through their 6-year journeys towards graduation. As the program grew, maintaining accurate records, tracking student progress, and managing day-to-day operations became unwieldy.
Goal
Reduce Chronic Absenteeism by Supporting Families
Hayward Promise Neighborhood’s work sits within a broader cradle-to-career mission: ensuring kids show up, stay engaged, and succeed from early childhood through career.
But the team was confronting a root issue with cascading effects.
Chronic absenteeism is a leading indicator of literacy outcomes, graduation rates, and long-term earnings.
Their theory of change was clear.
Chronic absenteeism is not a single student problem.
Supporting the whole family helps stabilize all children in the household.
Rather than running programmatic interventions in isolation, where one organization focuses on one student at a time, Hayward Promise was coordinating a family-centered navigation model.
They launched a 50-family pilot initiative where navigators and case managers could deliver:
coaching and family outreach
referrals to services
milestone tracking
case management and follow-up
attendance monitoring through school district uploads
This work required coordination across:
Alameda County Office of Education
Hayward Promise Neighborhood (broker and backbone organization)
school district staff (attendance and records)
probation and public sector partners
4Cs of Alameda County (navigation and direct referrals)
Challenge
The Coordination Challenge
Decades of disconnected data. Participant information existed across sprawling spreadsheets, making it difficult to confidently report to funders.
Manual student tracking: Staff had to constantly update milestones, and students had no ownership over their own tasks.
Paper-based workflows created extra work and slowed down the application to onboarding timeline.
Solution
Campground Helped Hayward Promise Build a System Around Their Workflow
Hayward Promise partnered with Campground to build a secure case management and referral tracking system that worked across organizations. This was the first time the partnership had been able to collaboratively build a system to match their real-world needs, instead of forcing their program into a tool designed for a different context. The cost was a fraction of the cost of hiring a developer or vendor.
What Campground did
Campground worked alongside the organization to digitize and streamline its operations by:
Organizing and cleaning participant, alumni, and volunteer data to import it into a centralized system. Other software vendors wouldn’t touch their data.
Transforming spreadsheet trackers into assignable digital task lists that students can access and complete through their own secure portal.
Converting the paper application into an online application with a “Save Draft” feature and automated email confirmations.
Providing additional tools that quickly became part of the team's daily operations, including email communications, event management, and a job board for participant opportunities.
Introduction
College Bound Opportunities (CBO) relied on spreadsheets and paper-based processes to manage participant data through their 6-year journeys towards graduation. As the program grew, maintaining accurate records, tracking student progress, and managing day-to-day operations became unwieldy.
Goal
Reduce Chronic Absenteeism by Supporting Families
Hayward Promise Neighborhood’s work sits within a broader cradle-to-career mission: ensuring kids show up, stay engaged, and succeed from early childhood through career.
But the team was confronting a root issue with cascading effects.
Chronic absenteeism is a leading indicator of literacy outcomes, graduation rates, and long-term earnings.
Their theory of change was clear.
Chronic absenteeism is not a single student problem.
Supporting the whole family helps stabilize all children in the household.
Rather than running programmatic interventions in isolation, where one organization focuses on one student at a time, Hayward Promise was coordinating a family-centered navigation model.
They launched a 50-family pilot initiative where navigators and case managers could deliver:
coaching and family outreach
referrals to services
milestone tracking
case management and follow-up
attendance monitoring through school district uploads
This work required coordination across:
Alameda County Office of Education
Hayward Promise Neighborhood (broker and backbone organization)
school district staff (attendance and records)
probation and public sector partners
4Cs of Alameda County (navigation and direct referrals)
Challenge
The Coordination Challenge
Decades of disconnected data. Participant information existed across sprawling spreadsheets, making it difficult to confidently report to funders.
Manual student tracking: Staff had to constantly update milestones, and students had no ownership over their own tasks.
Paper-based workflows created extra work and slowed down the application to onboarding timeline.
Solution
Campground Helped Hayward Promise Build a System Around Their Workflow
Hayward Promise partnered with Campground to build a secure case management and referral tracking system that worked across organizations. This was the first time the partnership had been able to collaboratively build a system to match their real-world needs, instead of forcing their program into a tool designed for a different context. The cost was a fraction of the cost of hiring a developer or vendor.
What Campground did
Campground worked alongside the organization to digitize and streamline its operations by:
Organizing and cleaning participant, alumni, and volunteer data to import it into a centralized system. Other software vendors wouldn’t touch their data.
Transforming spreadsheet trackers into assignable digital task lists that students can access and complete through their own secure portal.
Converting the paper application into an online application with a “Save Draft” feature and automated email confirmations.
Providing additional tools that quickly became part of the team's daily operations, including email communications, event management, and a job board for participant opportunities.
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