Nonprofit organization expands career programs using Power Pages and generative AI

A lot has happened at Degrees of Change since the organization launched its first Power Platform solution back in 2021. Its Act Six scholarship program has now sent more than 1,400 diverse, first-generation students to college equipped with leadership training and full scholarships provided by partner colleges. And the organization has been growing its Seed Internships program. This program identifies exceptional college students from underrepresented backgrounds and matches them with top, local employers.

All of this good work is driven by over 100 volunteers, a small support staff – and a very limited, non-profit budget. And that’s exactly what led to the organization’s first Power Platform solution. Before then, a custom-coded application had been built to digitize its Act Six program. But paying a third-party software vendor to maintain and improve the application was proving cost prohibitive. “We couldn’t afford to pay thousands of dollars each time we needed to make a small tweak or enhancement to the application,” says Tim Herron, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Degrees of Change.

Tommy Kim, the organization’s previous full-time IT resource, came up with a better idea. Kim already had some exposure to Power Platform. Once he completed his first Power Apps project, it lit a spark. “Tim, we can do so much more with Power Apps,” Kim said in a meeting. The company moved ahead with a Microsoft Power Platform solution in-house that would not only slash maintenance costs—but enable even more functionality than the original system. 

Cutting development costs with Power Platform

The Act Six solution was built using Power Apps, Power Automate, and Dataverse. Applications from students are collected in Dataverse and accessed by staff using a “scoring app”. “We took the custom .NET scoring application as our baseline and, in a matter of weeks, built the Power Apps version of the app,” Kim says. This app also makes it easier for staff to record selection decisions based on student materials and share with colleges. 

The low-code solution was an immediate success with students, volunteers, and staff. Inspired with this early win, Kim and Herron began work to refine and expand the solution. Updates included a feedback and support system for students and Act Six staff, with an online survey and a Power BI dashboard to display results. An embedded app enables the team to send custom text messages right from within the Power BI dashboard. 

Evolving the platform with a centralized portal 

One of the next big improvements made to the Act Six solution was the launch of a new Power Pages portal. Before this portal, students were using a third-party form builder service to submit program applications. Now, with the new portal, students can not only submit applications but see the status of their applications as they move through the evaluation and selection process. 

The organization also integrated Dynamics 365 into the system for additional student support. When students express interest in the program through the portal, this kicks off a flow through Dynamics 365 Marketing which sends follow-up emails and selection results. For students that are selected for scholarships, Dynamics 365 Customer Voice sends and tracks surveys – all through the same portal.

Automating a complex recruitment process 

As Herron and his team continued to expand its Act Six system, they also started work on another solution to help streamline the organization’s Seed Internships program. 

Thanks to the flexibility of Power Platform, there were many parts of the Act Six system such as the scoring app that could easily be repurposed and customized to support the Seed program. But the program also had its own unique challenges. As Herron explains, “With the Seed program, we were managing and tracking hundreds of internships, candidates, interviews and job offers through a complicated system of spreadsheets and emails. The process was largely manual and pushed our small team to the limits.” 

Today, much of that process is almost entirely automated. Here’s how it works using Power Platform: 

Employers register for the program through a Power Pages portal and submit a list of internship positions and hiring managers. This kicks off flows which send emails to each hiring manager inviting them to log into the portal where they provide details of their positions. As interviews are completed and participants selected, managers provide status updates through the portal which, in turn, initiate flows to update participants and staff through their own portal view. All data is centralized in Dataverse.