How the portal helped contest organizers save over $1 million

Almost everyone dreams of changing the world for the better: finally fixing potholes, installing more ramps, teaching grandma to use a computer, and so on. That's why when we saw the competition to develop a portal for the «Development of the Youth Corps of Kazakhstan» project, we immediately decided to participate.

The project was created by the World Bank and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and covered the entire country. Young people were given the opportunity to promote socially significant ideas and receive grants to implement them.

We supervised the portal for two years, from April 2017 to February 2019.

It was essential to make the grant distribution mechanism straightforward and understandable. The portal facilitated expert evaluations, mentorship programs, team formation, and much more.

Users can register at different access levels:

The administrator can add, delete, or edit articles, news, announcements, and project descriptions, while staff members can add or remove sections and make improvements.

We ensured the site’s security by setting up backups: daily, weekly, and monthly. Afterwards, we performed search engine optimization, and just two months later, the portal ranked first in search engines for the query «youth corps development project.»

Three times, the server became unavailable due to DDoS attacks. However, the problem was resolved quickly, resulting in an average downtime of only 89 seconds.

Promoting the project was also part of our responsibilities. We organized mobile promotional stands, ordered business cards, flyers, brochures, and posters, which promoters then distributed and posted around town. Additionally, we utilized billboards, television, online media, public transportation, social media marketing (VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram), launched contextual and targeted advertising, and ran ads in various communities. Overall, the project gained widespread attention.

The design meets all minimalist requirements: one primary color, blue, with orange as an accent.

The website includes the following sections:

Internally, the website consists of document workflow, a CRM system, a grant portal, and a ticketing system.

We have fully automated the application processing process, reduced paper workflow to almost zero, ensured full transparency of processes and eliminated the possibility of corruption.

We helped save the project nearly $300,000 per year on sending registered letters and additional staff that would have been needed if there was no portal.

The portal processed almost 8.5 million successful requests and served more than 80,000 unique users. We provided round-the-clock technical support for the website. We handled over 6,000 requests from participants (changing contact information, permission to edit, etc.). The server capacity and traffic volume of the portal increased fourfold.

Worthy ideas were rewarded, and young people received a grant to implement their ideas. As a result of the competition in 2018, 589 youth initiatives received grant support. In total, during the implementation period of the project, 2,668 social projects received grants. And we received a letter of appreciation from the organizers of the project.