Beyond Good Intentions: Transforming Service Design for NGOs

Figures 1 and 2 show the volunteer journey before and after we made changes.

After the initial wave of excitement, volunteers found themselves without adequate direction. There were no clear next steps. There was no structure for onboarding new volunteers. There was no roadmap to show newcomers how to go from being an interested participant to an active contributor.

This was a painful realization. We were so focused on serving external communities that we neglected our own internal ecosystem. One thing was clear: we needed to design an experience that guided volunteers into meaningful participation.

Designing a Better Volunteer Experience

So we redesigned the experience from the ground up, using the following process:

1. We introduced a buddy system. We paired every new volunteer with a mentor—someone who had already navigated the process and could provide practical, real-world guidance.
2. We structured the engagement path. Instead of expecting volunteers to magically figure out where they fit, we built a clear, step-by-step roadmap taking volunteers through the following stages:
   
   • beginner-level opportunities to participate in low-pressure engagements such as pre-recorded podcasts
   • intermediate challenges such as supporting existing projects
   • high-stakes leadership roles such as doing TV interviews and leading their own initiatives
3. We redesigned our NGO meetings. Volunteers could see a clear trajectory of progress through our gamified growth path. Instead of holding vague discussions, we introduced the following:
   
   • prestructured agendas so volunteers knew what was coming
   • breakout discussions that encouraged participation
   • actionable next steps—leaving people with a sense of progress rather than just another meeting

The Moment Everything Clicked

The transformation wasn’t immediate, but when it happened, we could feel it. Volunteers stopped asking what they should do because they already knew. New members arrived and immediately felt connected. After the first week of being part of the group, volunteers already had activities lined up, opportunities to contribute through radio interviews, options to join existing projects, and ways to learn practical science-communications skills from seasoned colleagues. Engagement went up. Burnout went down. Then, the pandemic hit.

Designing for a Crisis: An Unexpected Test for Our Volunteer System

The pandemic forced us to rethink everything. Suddenly, all our training and all our projects were virtual. However, because we had already designed a structured, scalable engagement model, transitioning to an online community wasn’t a crisis, merely an expansion.

Instead of in-person training, we launched a remote-first, peer-learning model in which scientists helped each other produce short educational videos for social media. This worked better than we had imagined. Consider the following outcomes:

• Sixty scientists, never meeting in person, produced over 200 educational videos.
• Some of these videos reached millions of viewers.
• Engagement was higher than for our pre-pandemic, in-person events.

Because we had designed a strong community structure, our volunteer system didn’t collapse under pressure—it evolved.

The Bigger Lesson: Service Design Isn’t a Luxury—It ’s a Necessity

NGOs don’t fail because of a lack of passion. They fail because passion alone isn’t enough. They struggle when their systems aren’t designed for sustainability, volunteers don’t know where they fit, engagement isn’t structured, and internal communities are afterthoughts.

But when NGOs do service design right:

• Volunteers don’t just stay, they thrive.
• Engagement doesn’t just happen, it compounds over time.
• The organization doesn’t merely function, it scales.

The bottom line? Every NGO designs service experiences—whether intentionally or not. The question is: Are those experiences helping them grow or holding them back?

Obviously, the lack of internal service design is not only an NGO problem. Even though most corporate teams would never launch a product without designing a clear user experience, how many companies treat their employees like their internal customers? How many employees need to navigate internal structures on their own? How many companies design their internal communities in the same way they design their customer journeys?

Here’s the thing: every organization has an internal service ecosystem, and every company, just like an NGO, can benefit from designing it better.

Conclusion

Service design is a necessity, not a luxury. The people who do an organization’s work—whether they are volunteers, employees, or students—should be treated like customers, and the organization’s internal systems should serve them well.

Don’t wait for a crisis or organizational setback to land on your doorstep to learn how poorly designed your service ecosystem is. Well-designed services and ecosystems often shine most brightly during difficult times by providing a safety net for their users. But achieving effective service design takes effort and a commitment not to settle for solutions that might lack the resiliency to withstand the slightest disruption.

Magda learned this imperative lesson through her NGO efforts. We hope there are some takeaways that you can apply to your own work. Do you have any service-design lessons that have helped your organization—whether within an NGO or a commercial enterprise? If so, please share them in the comments!