Rise Asset Development
Micro-finance for people with mental illness and addiction
Published on: 
2011
Co-creation, Philanthropy
  • Micro-finance for people with mental illness and addiction
    Rise Asset Development

    The Opportunity & Journey
    Rise Asset Development, a microfinance organization whose mission is to provide repayable funding and mentorship to entrepreneurs with mental illness, was struggling with a seemingly insurmountable problem: despite some initial successes and some very high profile backers, growth was elusive. After over two years in operation, the program had disbursed funds to only 11 clients, and the program’s mentorship offering was not achieving uptake by clients. Aspirations were to grow the program to hundreds of clients and create a thriving social venture capital success story. Yet growth would be challenging as the organization sought to balance the often divergent needs of its target customers and founding stakeholders (e.g., the Rotman family, the Rotman Business School at the University of Toronto, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health).
     
    Cooler Solutions saw a compelling opportunity to apply a user-centered design approach to help Rise achieve its objectives, and teamed up with Rise in May 2011. The Cooler team conducted user-centered research spending time with program existing and prospective clients and other stakeholders to understand their articulated and unarticulated needs, constraints, and wants.
     
    Key design principles that emerged from the research included recognizing and customizing support to the skill level and experience of each individual client, creating opportunities for clients to share their expertise and experience with others in the mental health community, and helping clients become successful within their own definition of success, in a way that respected their own daily rhythms and routines.
     
    A workshop brought together all the key stakeholders, including consumer survivors from the mental health and illness community and program founders and benefactors, to share learnings and align on areas for program change. Workshop participants collaborated on redefining program components and building out new tactics to help the programachieve its goals.
     
    The Results
    Cooler helped the Riseorganization gain credibility in the mental health & illness and addiction community by creating alignment and empathy among all the stakeholders on what could and should be done to help Rise achieve its goals. Strategy and tactics developed included an enhanced program governance structure, updated communications customized to medical and non-medical channels, updated language that was respectful of the MI&A community, a new marketing strategy with supporting collateral, and a completely revised mentorship program.
     
    Program updates are being launched in 4Q 2011, and have already met with positive response. Some members of the MI&A community that were once critical on the design and objectives of Rise have now become advocates and have taken an active role in supporting its success.