Ending the annual reset | Seed to Hub
Seed to Hub helps volunteer-driven organizations keep their talent and knowledge between events.Seed to Hub helps volunteer-driven organizations keep their talent and knowledge between events.
Project Type
Service Design Network Certificate Program, capstone
Scope
January–May 2024 (5 months)
Role
Service Designer: research lead, workshop facilitator, service concept
What I Did
Research: Volunteer interviews · Personas · Journey map · Service blueprint
Facilitation: Co-creation workshops · HMW & Crazy Eights ideation · Stakeholder alignment
Strategy: Problem reframing · Service concept · Balance value model
Design: Mobile prototype · Desktop walkthrough · VR experience visualization · Usability testing
Team
EdTech Consultant, Marketing Specialist
"What I liked about your work is that you have taken a long-term perspective."
— Birgit Mager, SDN
Overview
The problem. The Service Design Network's global conference runs on volunteers, and every year the volunteer program rebuilt itself from scratch.
The insight. Recruitment wasn't the problem. Across all seven phases of the volunteer lifecycle, what volunteers learned was lost or left informal, and the journey ended with a thank-you email.
The response. A connective service layer, a volunteer app, and an on-site pop-up linking volunteering to mentorship, skill development and career exposure, so knowledge and people carry into the next year.
01 - Understand: Knowledge leaked at every phase
Seven phases. Nothing carried forward.
I mapped the volunteer lifecycle from the first call for volunteers (2–3 months out) to the weeks after the event. The bottom row tells the story: knowledge was lost in four phases and informal in the other three. Shipping boxes and lanyards were reused. What volunteers learned was not.
Three findings that mattered
The ending was the emptiest part. Thank & Release meant a thank-you email, a certificate and a two-question survey. Behind the scenes there was no alumni list, no mentor pipeline and no role pathway.
Each cohort relearned the same things. Travel, lodging and orientation know-how was rediscovered by every volunteer, every year.
Even alumni fell through the gaps. One returning volunteer couldn't find her own acceptance email.
"There's no explicit starting point for the next team… it's kind of very open-ended."
— SDN HQ team member, research interview
Full volunteer lifecycle blueprint: 7 phases, from physical evidence down to the continuity and knowledge layer
02 - Define: The reframe
We started with: How might we reimagine the SDN volunteer experience?
Research reframed it:
How might we turn the end of the event into the start of a volunteer’s next step?
Point of view
Volunteering is treated as a one-time transaction. It's actually the front door to a talent pipeline, and the organization closes that door at Thank & Release (Blueprint Phase).
Hypothesis
If Thank & Release (Blueprint Phase) hands every volunteer a visible next step, more of them will come back, and come back as mentors and leads.
How we'd know it works (signals for a pilot)
More volunteers return the next year
Alumni become mentors for new cohorts
Next year's team starts from a handoff, not from scratch
Volunteer know-how gets recorded, not rediscovered
“Volunteers wish to feel that their work is more than just operational, but rather transcendent, aiding in their professional growth.””
Guiding principles
Design the ending first. The last touchpoint decides whether there's a next one.
Knowledge should outlive the event. What one cohort learns, the next one inherits.
Value runs both ways. Every step serves the volunteer and the organization.
Show the path. A visible next step beats a vague "come back if interested."
Light for organizers. Volunteer leads already have day jobs, so nothing can add heavy admin.
03 Design: One new connection at the end
Same seven phases. One new connection at the end.
Seed to Hub doesn't replace the volunteer journey. It closes the loop. A connective service layer links volunteering to mentorship, skill development and career exposure, so Thank & Release becomes the start of the next cycle instead of the end of this one.
The volunteer app: a hub between events Between conferences, volunteers keep learning in the app through short video courses in service design, blueprinting, prototyping and research. Each course ends in a quiz that earns points and badges, so the skills they build stay visible.
Mobile learning app lo-fi wireframes
Discover a course, learn chapter by chapter, prove it in a quiz and earn points, badges and a place on the leaderboard.
Flow 01: Discover & learn
Learning path
Flow 02: Assess & reward
Reward loop
The pop-up: meeting the path in person
At the conference itself, a Seed to Hub pop-up shows volunteers the pathway, introduces the internship program, and signs them up for the next cycle before they leave.
04 Build - What ships first
A vision is only useful if you know what to build first.
05 Validate - Walking through the service before building it
Desktop walkthrough
We didn't test screens one at a time. Four participants stepped through each phase of the service in a virtual desktop walkthrough, so their feedback covered the whole journey, especially the moment after the event. We then tested the mobile prototype screen by screen.
Mobile testing was the project's final round. It closed the capstone with a clear answer about what the app could and couldn't do alone.
What testing revealed: Testers understood the service right away and saw value in the short-form courses. But on its own, the app read as "a learning app for aspiring volunteers." Testers weren't sure how it connected to the SDN internship, and they asked for a way to "consult with an expert" when a volunteer has doubts.
What it told us: Courses and badges aren't enough. The pathway and the people have to show up in the product: the volunteer's next step (the internship and next-cycle roles) and a mentor to talk to. That's why the proposed rollout puts mentor pairing before the skill record.
Open usability issues for the next iteration
The map icon next to search was unclear.
Testers asked, "Is it free?" Cost needs to be stated up front.
Quiz rules needed answers: can you retake it, and what happens when you answer wrong?
Testers wanted an option to retake a course.
"I was especially pleased with how you used the virtual desktop prototyping to have people walk through as if they were going through different stages."
— Thomas Brandenburg, Service Design Master, Service Design Network
Outcome
7 lifecycle phases mapped · 9 interviews · 10 co-creation participants · 4 walkthrough testers
“What I liked about your work is that you have taken a long-term perspective. How can we engage volunteers that just don't only come once and then are gone, but have an experience that is valuable for the volunteer plus for the organization, and giving them kind of like a career path as a volunteer, I think this is a really really interesting idea.”
— Birgit Mager: Co-Founder and President of the Service Design Network.
Reflection
The end of an event is a design moment, not a finish line. Organizations pour energy into the event and give the ending a certificate and a survey. Treating that moment as the start of the next journey is the core of Seed to Hub.
Make the loss visible before proposing anything. The turning point wasn't an idea. It was one row of the blueprint, and it got everyone asking a better question.
Walking through a service changes the feedback. People reacted to the journey, not the pixels.
Co-creation made the reframe shared. Busy volunteers and organizers rarely get to step back. The workshops made the new direction theirs too, not just mine.
My growth edge: taking a service concept into a live pilot. Next I'd test the post-event phase with a returning cohort and measure who comes back, who mentors, and what knowledge reaches the next conference.
How I would do this with AI now
Faster synthesis, human themes. I'd use AI for the first pass on interview transcripts and the blueprint's raw notes, then do the theme work myself. AI matches keywords well. It wouldn't have seen that "please pick me" and "I don't know Toronto" are the same story about being left alone.
A blueprint the next team inherits. HQ said there's "no explicit starting point." Today I'd turn the blueprint into a living, interactive document that each year's team updates and hands to the next. The research artifact becomes part of the service.
AI-suggested mentor matches, human-confirmed. In the product, AI could suggest mentor pairings from past roles and skills, with an organizer confirming each match and volunteers opting in.