Participants are contacts who are invited to see, share and discuss progress with you and other contacts by logging in to their own user account on Makerble.

What this article covers

1 Get deeper engagement from Participants
2 How it works
3 Use Cases: examples of ways to involve Participants

Get deeper engagement from Participants

Make your contacts Participants when you want to
- retain engagement and ensure high completion rates when conducting longitudinal research - i.e. collect responses in a far more engaging way than through traditional surveys
- spark agency among your contacts by showing them their own progress-over-time which inspires them to take action themselves to achieve outcomes
- increase an entire group’s performance by creating a space - a community of practice - where contacts provide each other with peer-to-peer support, feedback and encouragement or even friendly competition.

How it works

Summary

By default, a contact only exists as a record in your CRM and therefore a contact cannot login
But when you make a contact a Participant, they get their own User Account which means they can login to Makerble
Participant Credits allow your Participants to login and use Makerble.
Each Participant Credit gives a Participant access to 1 project for 1 month
For example, a Participant with access to e.g. 3 projects for e.g. 6 months, would use 18 Participant Credits
You can purchase additional Participant Credits by emailing billing@makerble.com

The difference between Contacts, Participants and Colleagues

On Makerble you have colleagues and contacts.

Contacts are typically your clients, survey respondents, the people being supported, the people benefitting from your programme, service or project, or who are the targets of your campaign
- sometimes they might also be referral partners, signposting partners, funders.
Participants are contacts who have permission to login to Makerble.
Colleagues are usually your staff, whether they’re volunteers, freelancers or external partners.
Comparison: Contacts v Participants v Colleagues

Get Started with Participants

Create a Contact
Create a Managed Progress Board
Invite contacts to become Participants - i.e. add Contacts to a Managed Progress Board
Comparison: Contacts v Participants v Colleagues

Use Cases: examples of ways to involve Participants

Organisation	Colleagues	Contacts	Initial information required	What results are available for reporting and analysis?

Organisation	Colleagues	Contacts	Initial information required	What results are available for reporting and analysis?
Example 1 - Longitudinal study	Researchers, Evaluators and Data Analysts who want to understand the results of the study	Survey Respondents - the people who will be answering your questions over time	Each respondent needs to be created using one of the following methods: Enabling respondents to register themselves Importing respondents from a spreadsheet Creating contacts manually on the platform one-by-one	Every answer from every respondent to every question at every interval (wave) will be available for analysis using a Progress Board
Example 2 - Employment service	Staff who advise young people on how to get a job	Unemployed young people	Staff & Volunteers create new contact profiles for each new young person they work with Staff & Volunteers create stories that tag each young person whenever they have a meeting with them or work with them at one of their Employment Skills workshop Other professionals can refer a young person to the shelter by completing a Signup Page	Demographics of the young people who are supported Number of young people who get a job Number of young people supported per week, month, year, etc
Example 3 - Homeless shelter	Staff and Volunteers who provide the food and run the shelter	Homeless people	Staff & Volunteers create new contact profiles for each new homeless person who visits Staff & Volunteers create stories that tag each homeless person whenever they visit the shelter Other professionals can refer a homeless person to the shelter by completing a Signup Page	Demographics of the homeless people who visit Number of homeless people served per week, month, year, etc
Example 4 - Mental Health clinic	Staff and Volunteers who provide counselling services	People with mental health difficulties	Staff & Volunteers create new contact profiles for each new client who visits the clinic Staff & Volunteers create stories that tag each client whenever they visit the shelter Other professionals can refer a client to the clinic by completing a Signup Page	Demographics of the homeless people who visit Number of clients treated per week, month, year, etc

Example 1 - Longitudinal study

Each respondent logs in to Makerble and sees their Progress Board that displays Question Cards
They can either view their previous responses (which will be automatically turned into a chart for quantitative questions) and submit new responses
They can optionally view other participants responses and discuss them (if you allow this)

Example 2 - Employment service

The organisation pays £4.95/app/user/month for each Colleague to use Makerble.
The organisation does not pay based on the number of Contacts who are registered on Makerble.
But if the organisation wants a young person to be able to login to Makerble in order to
- journal their progress towards finding a job, e.g. posting updates about interviews secured, job applications made, courses they have attended, etc.
- see the progress posted by other young people who are looking for a job
- and see the updates logged by their Careers Advisor…
…the organisation could buy some a block of Participant Credits which would give each young person access to Makerble.

Example 3 - Homeless shelter

The organisation pays £4.95/app/user/month for each Colleague to use Makerble.
The organisation does not pay based on the number of Contacts who are registered on Makerble.
But if the organisation wants a homeless person to be able to login to Makerble in order to
- journal their progress towards leaving poverty
- see the progress posted by other homeless people
- and see the updates logged by their caseworker…
…the organisation could buy some a block of Participant Credits which would give each homeless person access to Makerble.

Example 4 - Mental health clinic

The organisation pays £4.95/app/user/month for each Colleague to use Makerble.
The organisation does not pay based on the number of Contacts who are registered on Makerble.
But if the organisation wants a person with mental health difficulties to be able to login to Makerble in order to
- journal their mental health journey
- see the progress posted by people on the programme
- and see the updates logged by their caseworker…
…the organisation could buy some a block of Participant Credits which would give each client access to Makerble.

Makerble User Guide

Design the way you'll involve Participants (Participant Credits)