Upwardly Global Success Story

The Challenge

On February 24th, 2022, the world changed. The war in Ukraine began and 8.2 million people had to flee to safety in neighboring countries. Many of them were talented professional people. How do you quickly find millions of new jobs for them so that financial independence can be one less issue for people dealing with uncertainty?

Upwardly Global acted quickly and launched a new career coaching program to assist refugee and immigrant professionals from Ukraine, who are living in Warsaw, to find employment matching their education, skills and experience. In particular, they focused on roles at U.S. and multinational companies and their Polish network partners. They wanted to provide a way for all refugees, even ones that are not eligible for their career coaching program, to be able to access free, online, and self-paced career readiness resources that would aid in their job search. They aimed to deliver this help as soon as possible.

The Idea

VRP Consulting heard about this need and wanted to use its expertise and knowledge to help Upwardly Global. VRP set about understanding the challenge and timeline in which things would need to be built to help the Ukrainian refugee community.

Upwardly Global partnered with VRP Consulting to create a digital hub with job readiness resources. As experts in this field, VRP knew it would need to be based on Salesforce Experience Cloud, like Upwardly Global’s other online communities, and would require self-registration for all users, authenticating them in order to gain access.

Most importantly, due to the desperate nature of the situation, it was vital that VRP delivered all of this functionality within less than two weeks.

The Solution

Acting pro bono as part of the Pledge 1% commitment, VRP experts quickly built Upwardly Global a Salesforce Experience Cloud Portal within their tight two-week deadline. It provides program participants with access to their resources, including a resume builder, training content such as interview and networking tips, and online courses through groups like Coursera and Udemy. Access to the portal is securely authenticated, and the portal also offers introductions to users in both Ukrainian and English languages.

The Stages

VRP Consulting first created a Salesforce Experience Cloud Portal that would match the client’s needs and branding, in line with their existing Upwardly Global Afghan response portal. VRP then implemented authentication which meant that the portal was accessible only by registered, authenticated users, creating a web form which participants could use to register, as well as login and password recovery pages.

Once the portal was built and secured, VRP then populated it with Upwardly Global’s helpful content and integrated their resume builder tool. Created by a third party, this app had already been used in Upwardly Global’s other initiatives, and VRP’s specialist expertise was required to connect it to Salesforce. VRP also performed all other required integrations, including Google Analytics, the client’s data analytics platform of choice.

The Result

Upwardly Global now has an online platform that can support its program and provide its participants with valuable career readiness resources. Because users are authenticated, Upwardly Global can access anonymized data on participants’ usage of the portal, its resources, and their progress. Going forward, this data will provide insights into Upwardly Global’s impact, which can be used to better direct their efforts, increase their effectiveness and demonstrate their work.

Company Profile

Upwardly Global is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization working to support immigrants and refugees with international credentials to restart their careers in the USA. Their skill-building and networking programs coach internationally trained professionals in rebuilding professional careers and U.S. employers in accessing their talents with inclusive hiring practices.