Case study

How Boost uses its community to
create value before, during, and after
its fellowship program

Discover how the community creates unique and engaging virtual experiences to grab and maintain attendees’ attention.

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“We can offer so much more value to our course participants with Hivebrite’s platform. Boost is honored to be a valued community for immunization professionals worldwide. It is incredible to see meaningful connections and conversations unfold organically.”

Elizabeth Kohlway
Community Building and Digital Engagement Director
 Sabin Vaccine Institute

500+

Number of active participants in the program

16%

Growth in community membership

7%

average monthly engagement increase

Sabin vaccine Institute community story

About Sabin Vaccine Institute

The Sabin Vaccine Institute is a leading advocate for expanding vaccine access and uptake globally, advancing vaccine research and development, and amplifying vaccine knowledge and innovation.

Mission

Sabin’s vision is a future free from vaccine-preventable diseases. This vision is achieved by advancing global immunization, developing innovative vaccines, and strengthening communities through education and support.

Visit the community

The Sabin Vaccine Institute is using Hivebrite for all of their Immunization professional networks

Sabin has been using Hivebrite since 2022. The platform helps immunization professionals play a vital role in delivering one of the world’s most powerful health interventions: vaccines. Boost is building a world where immunization professionals are empowered to grow and lead in their careers and accelerate change in their communities.

The community challenge

Sabin partnered with Hivebrite to launch Boost, a dynamic global community designed to empower immunization professionals by facilitating meaningful connections with peers and industry experts. The platform serves as a central hub where members can access valuable resources, share knowledge, and build the skills needed to advance their careers in public health. At the heart of Boost’s value proposition is its commitment to ongoing learning, with professional development courses and training sessions playing a key role in delivering that promise. By leveraging Hivebrite’s robust features, Sabin created an inclusive, interactive space that supports collaboration and growth for professionals around the world.

However, as virtual learning and events have become more widespread in recent years, the digital landscape has grown increasingly saturated. Audiences are now inundated with webinars, online courses, and virtual conferences, making it harder for any single offering to stand out. This shift has posed a new challenge for the Boost team—and Community Managers more broadly—as they must now go beyond simply delivering educational content. To capture and retain attendees’ attention, they must design distinctive, high-value experiences that prioritize interactivity, personalization, and real-time engagement. This means continually experimenting with new formats, incorporating feedback, and using data to refine strategies that ensure their sessions remain relevant and impactful.

Hivebrite’s full-stack community platform enabled Sabin to:

Facilitate organic connections

Foster independent sub-communities to enable connections while maintaining institutional governance

Create a repository of knowledge

Build a centralized knowledge hub that leverages member expertise

Nurture career development

Support member career advancement through mentoring programs, job opportunities and networking tools

Encourage collaboration and innovation

Facilitate partnerships and networks to drive industry advancement and promote innovation

Promote advocacy efforts

Empower members to amplify their impact, collaborate, advocate, and drive engagement

Gather data and insights

Monitor user behavior, engagement metrics, and content performance to measure the impact of initiatives

The Hivebrite solution

In 2022, Boost partnered with WHO to create a fellowship program for national and subnational immunization staff to support them as they plan and implement activities to recover and strengthen their countries’ immunization programs. The program was organized using Hivebrite’s platform. A public page was created to promote the fellowship program. Once registered, participants were signed up for the Boost community and added to a group dedicated to the program and given access to the benefits of the wider community.

Participants could exchange and get to know other participants during the course session runup and after. The program offered a learning engagement series. Participants were encouraged to ask and answer questions live throughout each course session to drive engagement in the community. The team also created specific forum discussions within the community to keep questions and engagement going after each session.

The team built anticipation for each pre-course session by sending invites, reminders, and session news—a powerful tactic in combating live engagement attrition. The team centralized all course communication through Hivebrite’s Communication Module. Post-course session, the team shared all the session recordings via email and the community’s resource center. In parallel with the live sessions, a mentor program was created to enhance the training’s impact further and support attendees’ professional development. Program participants can exchange knowledge and experiences, learn new skills, and provide guidance to help others achieve their ambitions.

Key features designed for associations

Groups and sub-communities

Manage chapters, committees, and interest groups while empowering leaders to run spaces independently.

News, content, and resources

Share timely updates and news to keep members engaged and informed about your community. 

Memberships

Boost revenue and retention by offering customized membership tiers that deliver the right benefits to the right members at the right time.

Role-based access control

Maintain security and structure by precisely controlling who can access, edit, and manage different areas of your platform.

Email & campaign builder

Reach association members with personalized emails and campaigns—no technical skills needed.

Events and ticketing

Host virtual and IRL events with RSVP, paid ticketing, and QR codes. Enhance experiences and encourage participation.

Member directory and profiles

Empower your association community to discover, connect, and collaborate with fellow members.

The outcome

The Boost fellowship program attracted significant interest, with over 500 participants attending regularly and 638 members actively joining the dedicated fellowship group on the Boost platform. This surge in participation led to a 16% overall growth in the community, reflecting the program’s strong appeal and relevance to immunization professionals worldwide. Throughout the fellowship, engagement levels consistently climbed, with an average monthly increase of 7%, indicating sustained interest and meaningful interaction among participants. This momentum demonstrated the value of combining high-quality training with a purpose-built community platform.

Hivebrite’s platform played a crucial role in enabling this success by facilitating engagement not only during the fellowship but also before and after the program. Attendees could connect, collaborate, and prepare for sessions in advance, while continued access to the group allowed for ongoing discussions, resource sharing, and peer support long after the training concluded. This continuity strengthens the sense of community and extends the learning lifecycle well beyond a single event. The Boost team now has a thriving sub-community it can tap into each year, enhancing the reach and effectiveness of future fellowship editions as well as other live engagements, training sessions, and online courses.

“Hivebrite enables us to sustain and scale our community and virtual engagement strategies to continue supporting our members as best as possible.”

Elizabeth Kohlway
Community Building and Digital Engagement Director
 Sabin Vaccine Institute