50,000 Families to 90 Museums in 4 Weeks

Cool Culture is a non-profit working very hard to drive social change by helping low-income families access and enjoy NYC's world-class cultural institutions. The organization provides families with children under the age of six with experiences to improve literacy and learning, and helps cultural institutions be truly inclusive; a mission we understand. 

Cool Culture partners with more than 400 early childhood programs and public schools to distribute cultural institution passes. Understanding that the use of modern technology and strategic partnerships would allow them to innovate and enhance their customer experience, they applied for a mixed grant called The Digital Prototype Opportunity. 

Cool Culture competed against over 200 other organizations for this grant, sponsored jointly by ThoughtWorks, Blue Ridge Foundation, and The New School at Parsons. The provision and delivery of mobile-based digital passes to qualifying families reduces excessive paper and lost passes while encouraging more regular cultural center visits.

As part of this grant, ThoughtWorks, in close collaboration with Cool Culture, in the short timeframe of four weeks built a mobile-web experience, capable of delivering digital passes to 50,000 families.

 

Given the short time frame to deliver, ThoughtWorks drove innovation faster by focusing on the design and delivery of the features with the highest impact.

"ThoughtWorks has been really great in helping Cool Culture define what the challenges are for the parents we serve and transforming those challenges into innovative mobile solutions that can be put to use in only a few weeks. We are excited that we've created a product that resonates with families." – Candice Anderson, Executive Director, Cool Culture

We are looking forward to continuing our strategic partnership with Cool Culture by helping them explore new business model opportunities and aid them with different grant applications. We are also working with Cool Culture to help roll out the application to partnering museums and cultural centers.