Overview
In 2008, Lumina Foundation set an ambitious goal: by 2025, 60% of adults in the US would hold a college degree or other valuable credential. Achieving this goal requires unwavering focus and dedication. For close to two decades, Lumina has worked tirelessly toward this mission—for nearly all of that time, SmallBox has been proud to support them along the way. As their web strategy partner, we’ve collaborated closely with Lumina to help organize and communicate the complexity of their work and the extraordinary impact they’ve made in building a stronger nation.
We believe the launch of any website is just the beginning, and Lumina’s journey has been no exception. As Lumina has evolved, we’ve been right by their side, ensuring their website evolves with them. Over the course of our 12-plus-year partnership, we’ve launched two new websites. Through strategic collaboration driven by data and audience insights, we’ve consistently worked to improve the user experience by ensuring the website is simple to use, despite the complexity of Lumina’s work. With a focus on achieving the highest standards of web accessibility, our shared commitment to equity and access for all has been at the heart of our efforts.
Our Work
Throughout our long partnership, we’ve also joined forces with Lumina and other strategic partners to showcase their initiatives through dynamic digital storytelling. Special projects along the way have included:
Talking about Racial Equity and Racial Justice: SmallBox partnered with the Lumina team and Hattaway Communications to highlight their research centered on national conversations around race. Through a highly visual, interactive web presence, we brought the critical data to life, helping audiences more easily engage with challenging subjects.
Today’s College Climb: Lumina partnered with photographer Rachel Bujalski to tell the story of today’s adult learners through an intimate photojournalistic project and accompanying documentary. To showcase the work, we built a special section of Lumina’s website that features Bujalksi’s stunning imagery paired with Lumina’s inspiring narrative. The result is a powerful storytelling platform that has hosted more than 1 million impressions since its launch.
Local Talent Handbook: Too often organizations rely on PDF readers for long-format online publications, ignoring SEO, analytics tracking, and user experience. When Lumina created a handbook to help local communities recruit and foster talent, they turned to us to design an engaging and useful online tool. The result is an easy-to-find (SEO), easy-to-track (analytics), easy-to-navigate (UX design), and, most importantly, easy-to-implement handbook (Lumina’s brilliant content!).
Much has changed in our more than decade of collaboration with Lumina, but the one thing that has remained consistent is our close strategic partnership and our shared dedication to the success of their mission.
We rely on SmallBox’s design thinking as much as their UX expertise and graphic design talents. SmallBox isn’t a vendor, they are a long-term partner who has helped our website evolve and grow with us and our audiences.
- Matthew Jenkins, Lumina Foundation