New Solutions for Reading Together

Do you remember a favorite childhood storybook? Was it Goodnight Moon? Horton Hears a Who? The Velveteen Rabbit? Many of us can recall that favorite book, plus the comforting voice of a caregiver as they read it to us over and over again. For many members of our armed forces, one of the most difficult parts of deployment is missing out on the bonding that comes through reading with their child. “The mission of United Through Reading (UTR) is to be a bridge for military families who are facing physical separation through the power of reading together,” says Sally Ann Zoll, Chief Executive Officer of UTR. “Every child should feel the emotional bonding and security of being read aloud to.”

UTR’s desire is to reach as many military families as they can with the power of a shared story time, so they sought a partner to help them think through how they could scale their operations to reach even more children—with an audacious goal of reaching 1 million beneficiaries by 2019. A group of Booz Allen volunteers, giving their own time and expertise, answered that call for help.

UTR relies on approximately 500 active-duty service member volunteers annually to run its program—facilitating the recordings, which are burned to DVD and shipped to the service member’s family. “This worked great for many years, but it’s not very efficient or scalable today and doesn’t take advantage of advancements in digital technologies,” says Senior Associate Susan Briessinger, a member of the Booz Allen volunteer project team.

True to our management consulting expertise, the Booz Allen team delivered a comprehensive analysis of the organization’s business model—focusing on institutional roles, stakeholder analysis, and a baseline of UTR’s service delivery model. In the next phase the team brainstormed alternatives to the not-for-profit’s current model based on “accessibility, reliability, and repeatability” criteria. The outcome was a set of strategic recommendations for UTR—the cornerstone of which was an integrated technology plan to include a web-based app that would be accessible for users and beneficiaries. The app would ultimately be more cost efficient, be less labor intensive, and meet the expectations of the organization’s younger skewing demographic, who are digitally savvy consumers.

“In our focus on the ‘what’ we wanted—reaching 1 million beneficiaries—we were at risk of overlooking the ‘how.’ Having the consulting expertise of a team of Booz Allen volunteers, who think through these kinds of challenges on a daily basis, was invaluable to us,” says Victoria Cameron-Lewis, senior director for development at UTR.

In the final phase of their 4-month project, the volunteers developed a requirements document to guide UTR in the development and implementation of an app-based model. The requirements addressed UTR’s concerns about the security of web-based apps, specifically any type of geo-tagging that could compromise sensitive troop deployments, and for those locations that didn’t have access to mobile technologies.

“We met the UTR employees and their passion inspired us. They are so committed, and their mission was something our Booz Allen team members quickly wrapped our hearts around,” says Susan. “When we heard the stories of these long deployments and the positive impact UTR had on families, we became invested in helping them figure out how to make this new model work.”

A year after this engagement, UTR has made strides in examining technologies and looking for the right partner to help with app development. As part of the firm’s ongoing support to military family resiliency, Booz Allen is staying in touch, examining ways we can continue to support UTR’s mission moving forward.