Department of the Interior

A Doodle User Experience Study

When government agencies work with local communities, collaboration is key. Darion Mayhorn from a Government agency in the Department of the Interior spoke with us about how Doodle streamlines meetings that get community-based environmental initiatives off the ground.

Dealing with a large volume of external meetings is difficult

Each year, the agency receives up to 70 million dollars in federal funding, which it then allocates to local grant applicants. Successful applicants must attend a Financial Aid Initiation Meeting. The agency makes a point of debriefing with unsuccessful applicants. Says Darion, ‘we have what we call these debriefings. We get on the phone with them, we walk them through the applications, what kind of opportunities there are for improvement.’ Scheduling external one-on-one consultations at this volume was a major headache until the agency began using Doodle.

Organize hundreds of meetings, in minutes.

Before Doodle Premium, the agency was organizing their meetings the old-fashioned way: ‘...it was someone looking at our calendars, coming up with a bunch of different times, and then emailing those out to everyone...It was just completely cumbersome, the way that we were doing this game of email tag.’ With the time they save using Doodle Premium, the team at the agency can focus on their real work: collaborating with local communities on implementing environmental initiatives. Says Darion, ‘It allows us to focus on the things that we really need to focus on’.

Doodle 1:1 streamlines consultations with external partners and clients

Whether they’re walking a successful applicant through grant logistics, or advising an unsuccessful applicant on how to improve their funding request, the majority of the agency’s meetings are 1:1 meetings with external stakeholders. Doodle 1:1 allows the agency to arrange multiple 1:1 external meetings simply and flexibly. According to Darion,‘...the 1:1 functionality has actually been the best...it’s worked out really well.’

Use cases: Team meetings, external stakeholders, one-on-ones, appointments