Visualizing Strategy on Behalf of Displaced People

Sector

Economic justice

Offer

Corporate strategy

Client

Alight x Neol

Alight, formerly known as the American Refugee Committee, is a $100 million international non-governmental organization that has been delivering humanitarian aid to millions of displaced people since 1979. When it hired a new CEO from the human-centered design community in 2021, the nonprofit's corporate strategy changed in immeasurable ways—precisely the problem.

Our approach

Design question

Under new leadership, Alight's corporate strategy swiftly evolved to prioritize customer-centered insights, co-creation, and iterative service improvement. But how could executive leadership demonstrate advancement on these goals to the board and sector at large?

Design response

The first step was to take a step back. What does customer-centered insights actually mean in country offices around the globe, especially in a time of climate displacement? What does participatory co-creation actually look like on the ground? How does feedback gathered in the field actually fold back into improved service design? How might we quantify and capture these activities in a manageable and sustainable way? Powered by Neol, Fraîche partnered with Nuway to unpack the belief system, information infrastructure, and operational baseline of a rapidly maturing enterprise. The team defined a simple set of key measures at three altitudes—general statistics, strategic performance indicators, and operating metrics—then brought these to life through beautiful data visualization and an accompanying culture-shift guide.

Testimonial

“I've known Lisa for over ten years. I first hired her to visualize several quantitative systems for IDEO.org, so I knew she could do the technical and visual work. She treats spreadsheet programs like coding languages and builds these beautiful little tools that feel like custom 'products.' So I knew we'd get a dashboard. But what I didn't expect was the org design work we got on top, or maybe I should say, on bottom—as a base. Because it turned out there were some foundational questions we needed to consider first—culture, team roles, longer-term strategy, and how we planned to govern data. The final dashboard is perfect for the moment we are in—and the org design work undergirding it is in some ways even more valuable because it enabled us to confront so many other crucial questions.”

Jocelyn Wyatt

Chief Executive Officer at Alight