Higher Purpose fuels new narratives

Changing the narrative and uplifting Mississippi 

In an area of the country that’s 40% Black, CEO Dr. Tim Lampkin founded Higher Purpose Co. to change the narrative about Black families, entrepreneurs, and communities. The nonprofit aggressively tackles generational poverty, structured inequality, and institutionalized racism in the state of Mississippi by operating within three areas of change: business ownership, land ownership, and home ownership. 

While Lampkin’s organization started out with a specific focus on small business owners, it has evolved to serve farmers, artists, and everyday citizens as well. Through business resources, community education, access to capital, and creating intentional networking opportunities, Higher Purpose is doubling down on creating better solutions for Black-owned businesses and citizens of the South. 

Lampkin sums it up neatly: “We’re really committed to just uplifting and elevating the state of Mississippi.” 

It’s a grand commitment coming from a small organization, all of whom use Box to quickly collaborate and move the mission forward. 

The right balance of security, collaboration, and retention 

Early on in its development, Higher Purpose lost a key team member, and with them, some key content. This created what Lampkin calls “an uncomfortable moment in terms of our information — and some very challenging conversations around security. To have information completely deleted from our organization was just devastating.” 

Realizing they needed to protect all their content from breach, fraud, and erasure was one of the motives that led Higher Purpose to the Content Cloud. Another motive was the desire to establish a centralized, cloud-based content repository where they could keep all content, organize it with a thoughtful file structure, and collaborate more easily. 

In a small organization where people wear a lot of hats and work with many customers and partners, you never know who’s going to need access to what, and where they’re going to be when they need that access. Ideally, the content management platform wouldn’t just be for internal employees — it would connect the entire community. Lampkin says, “That’s how we found our home with Box. It’s been a great asset for us to be able to collaborate in a seamless way.” 

Moving workflows and signatures forward faster 

“We signed up not knowing what to expect,” Lampkin says. “We were blown away about how the platform was really in line with where we were and where we wanted to go.” 

Today, the finance and operations team can quickly access critical, timely content such as grant information or contracts. They can also review and accept applications and contracts rapidly, thanks to Box Sign. They recently launched a food procurement program, and within Box, they can collaborate with external stakeholders like food vendors and entrepreneurs across the state of Mississippi. 

By applying Box Relay, Higher Purpose has been able to roll out the vendor procurement program quickly and seamlessly. Applications and information are automatically stored in the correct folders in Box, and follow-up with food vendors is built right into the workflow. From accepting applications to moving through the review process to payments, Box Relay is a critical resource on this project, with Box Sign integrated to ensure quick and secure signatures from employees, community members, consultants, vendors, and customers. 

Getting granular around retentions and permissions 

Most critically, Box has enabled Higher Purpose to get granular around content security and regulatory compliance. In particular, they take great advantage of the retention and permission features of Box. As a nonprofit working with government agencies, all kinds of external partners, and the sensitive personal information of customers, Higher Purpose has to have solid retention policies in place. The nonprofit aims to increase donor retention, so being able to confidently ensure that information donors supply won’t be compromised is essential. 

In addition, much of the organization’s funding comes from various grants, including the Box Impact Fund. Keeping all the paperwork and contracts associated with grants and funding secure is extremely important, but the Content Cloud also helps surface information and paperwork when needed. With Box, Higher Purpose achieves this by embedding permissions into workflows to move work forward. 

A close partnership to create the right content plan 

The nonprofit’s team worked directly with Box to make sure everything was clearly structured and that the right retention features were put in place. This partnership also enabled Higher Purpose to take advantage of Box beyond mere content management. Lampkin explains, “Box Consulting allowed us to really understand how the platform could be adapted to all the departments in our organization, not just for general data management and protection but using it from programming to creative to finance and operations to community outreach.” 

In addition to centralized content in the Content Cloud, Higher Purpose uses Box Relay for workflows, Box Sign for native e-signature, Box Governance for retention, Box Shield for security, and various integrations to keep everyone productive in seamless ways. Now, Higher Purpose is focused on tapping into Box AI while creating grant proposals and reports — content types that can be very repetitive, wordy, and dry. 

Shifting content to Box enabled Higher Purpose to fulfill another of its, well, higher purposes: to set an elevated standard for other local nonprofits around how to use technology to scale up impact. Having the tools and technology to do the work right makes an enormous difference to Lampkin’s team and the communities they serve. “I think the beautiful thing is it was a learning opportunity for all of us,” Lampkin says. “We now recognize that our level of tech savviness is higher than we thought, a true testament to embracing technology to increase how we serve the community.” 

The top three things Higher Purpose loves about Box, according to Lampkin: 

1. Access: “The ability to access the platform on my mobile device, my laptop, or my desktop, has been super helpful in terms of accessing information."

2. Box AI: “We’re really getting into that — to leverage that technology and create grant proposals and reports for the organization."

3. Box Sign: “I really love to use Box Sign because it’s easy to utilize on my phone as well as knowing that it’s connected to this larger platform."

 

It’s really great to just have a tool that is user friendly — a great asset for us to collaborate in a seamless way."

— Dr. Tim Lampkin, CEO, Higher Purpose