The Sutton Trust
Outreach support online
Like thousands of other organisations around the world, The Sutton Trust had its plans ripped up during the global coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Their summer schools programming was forced to move online and be delivered unlike it ever had been previously.
However, The Sutton Trust was able to turn this challenge into an opportunity. By moving online, they ended up supporting even more students than originally planned for and still delivered a superb summer of work. At the heart of it was our platform.
The Challenge
The Sutton Trust already had plans in progress to build a new online platform to provide a digital offering to students that didn’t quite gain a place on their desired program. Sutton Trust Online was intended to run alongside in person programming for their pathways programs and UK summer schools, which are usually hosted at over 20 universities across the UK.
But, coronavirus changed all that. Quickly, all programming moved entirely online. All of the content was delivered remotely, as was the peer-to-peer support offered by their ambassadors through our platform.
However, the Sutton Trust didn’t shirk the challenge; by moving online they were able to increase the amount of students they supported by 100%.
The Sutton Trust used our Group TAP Feed to bring together over 800 ambassadors from various institutions so that students could speak directly to ambassadors not only related to their program, but also Sutton Trust alumni and ambassadors from different sectors and universities. We integrated with Sutton Trust Online’s Single Sign On process to ensure that students could seamlessly start conversations with ambassadors after signing in to their STO account.
We also ran a series of online training workshops to ensure the Trust’s 800 ambassadors were confident using our platform and knew what was expected of them in their roles.
Why The Ambassador Platform
“Building a professional and social network is a key component of our programs and we wanted to recreate these interactions on our new digital platform. The Ambassador Platform has allowed us to connect our students with our growing alumni community. It has helped our students to chat to their peers, and gain advice and tips from alums who are just a few steps ahead of them”
Binda Patel
Head of Innovation
The Sutton Trust
Direct conversations
Our Chat feature allowed for authentic, peer-to-peer conversations between prospects and The Sutton Trust’s ambassadors. These conversations helped answer burning questions, and equip thousands of young people to make confident decisions about their future.
Safeguarding by design
Our ‘safeguarding by design’ approach to building our platform, with in-built checks and alerts, offered a safe space for conversation and reflected The Sutton Trust’s passion for safeguarding.
A passion for WP and Outreach
We share their passion for widening participation and outreach. One of our co-founders has first-hand experience of working in widening participation to higher education. Our work in this area reflects our company mission and it aligned with the goals of The Sutton Trust.
