Case study

How the Taco Bell Foundation created a thriving scholar community

The non-profit organization partnered with Hivebrite to build a supportive, fun community where scholarship recipients can grow and share passions.

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Taco Bell

400+

charitable partners

$7M

awarded in scholarships to passionate changemakers nationwide

A vibrant scholar community

to foster connections, enhance resources, and fuel passions

“Hivebrite provides the features we need to encourage member participation in the community. I can keep on the pulse of the community, spot trends, facilitate conversations, elevate voices, and demonstrate to our scholars that we are listening to their needs. Our members are reaching out to share ideas, showcase their passions, ask and answer questions, and take action.”

Michael Nemeth / Head of Digital Experience, CoLabL, engagement strategy partner for Taco Bell Foundation

About Taco Bell Foundation

The breaks down barriers to educate and inspire the next generation of leaders through organizational grants, scholarships, experiences, and community.

It awards the Live Más Scholarship to young people who use their passion to help and inspire others.

Mission

Foster authentic connections among scholars and mentors to accelerate growth and change.

Visit the community

The community challenge

The Taco Bell Foundation wanted to provide its Live Más scholars with more than scholarship money. They also wanted to give scholars unique access to inspirational programs and experiences so they can positively impact their communities.

The organization surveyed and spoke with its scholarship recipients to discover how it could better support them and their needs. Among the scholars’ requests was a virtual community where they could get to know each other, organize in-person meetups, and collaborate on projects together. ”We already had a Facebook community, but we realized that it wasn’t a long-term option,” says Marissa Lara, who leads programs and partnerships for the organization.“ We needed a platform that could accommodate the rapid growth of our scholar community and provide our scholars with real value,” says Lara.

The Hivebrite solution

The organization turned to Hivebrite for its extensive customization options and tools. The Live Más Scholar Community, Live Más Scholar Connect, provides scholars with a space to connect with peers, find inspiration, and grow personally and professionally.

Hivebrite’s platform offered Taco Bell Foundation the customized branding options it required. All visual elements in the community, from typography to colors, match the Taco Bell Foundation’s visual identity and reinforce the organization’s branding and create a seamless experience across all channels.

Crucially, Hivebrite also offered a fully-branded mobile app version of the community. The app offers the same features as the desktop version of the community and enables members to more conveniently connect and engage, facilitating deeper engagement and further enhancing brand recognition.

Other Hivebrite features that the community utilizes include the interactive member directory, interactive resource center, and event module. With the interactive directory, members can quickly and easily search for peers based on criteria such as graduating class, passions, and location. The resource center is home to multimedia content and is easily organized with a tagging system and access permissions that can be set by admins. Messaging features and user portfolio uploads allow members to customize their profiles and connect with other members