A mission, built into software
Our work · Nonprofits & K-12

One platform for K-12 behavioral health.

Building Dreams is a multi-role platform for K-12 behavioral health and social-emotional learning, built for the Fight for Life Foundation and its founder, former Indianapolis Colt Marlin Jackson. Admins, teachers, students, and parents each get their own view, tied together by the MTSS tiers schools already use. We've built it with the foundation since 2018.

A multi-role K-12 behavioral-health platformAdmin, teacher, student, and parent, all in oneBuilt for the Fight for Life Foundation since 2018
01 The problem

A mission needs more than good intentions.

The Fight for Life Foundation, founded by former Indianapolis Colt Marlin Jackson, set out to help K-12 students build the social and emotional skills that let them thrive. Doing that at scale takes software: a way for everyone around a student to work from the same picture, and a way to see whether the work is landing.

Support like this touches many people at once. Administrators run the program, teachers work with a classroom, students do the day-to-day, and parents want to see how their child is doing. The foundation needed one platform that gave each of them their own view and pulled the whole effort together, and a software team to build it and grow it over time.

We may have ideas, we may have a vision, but they can actually turn it into reality and make it tangible... You need somebody that is dependable, reliable, that you can trust, and that is everything they [Counterpart] have been for us, and it has made it so much easier to actually carry out and execute our mission.

Marlin Jackson · Founder & CEO, Fight for Life Foundation
02 What we built

Four roles, one platform, every classroom.

Building Dreams gives everyone around a student a place to work, with the MTSS tiers and social-emotional learning built into how the platform runs.

Admins

Program oversight

Content, configuration, and oversight of every implementation, so the people running the program manage it from one place.

Teachers

Classroom tools

Tools to run social-emotional activities and check-ins with a class, and to see how each student is doing along the way.

Students

Check-ins and points

Social-emotional check-ins with a gamified points system that keeps students engaged in the day-to-day work.

Parents

A window in

A parent view into their child's participation and progress, so support at school carries over at home.

MTSS

Tiered support

Built around the multi-tiered system of supports schools already use to match the level of help to each student's need.

Analytics

Dashboards that prove it

Analytics on engagement, behavior, and well-being, so the foundation and its schools can report on impact and decide what to do next.

03 Under the hood

Proven technology, chosen on purpose.

Almost everything we ship runs on the same modern Microsoft stack: proven, supported, and easy to hire for years from now. Cutting edge but never bleeding edge.

.NETSQL ServerMicrosoft Azure

One platform serving four kinds of user, with role-based views, gamified SEL check-ins, classroom tools, and analytics dashboards on top of the same data.

04 The long run

A platform for a mission, since 2018.

The Fight for Life Foundation came to us with a vision for how technology could carry its mission into classrooms. We've built and grown Building Dreams with the foundation since 2018, and we're still its software team, adding to the platform as the program grows.

since 2018
building the platform with the foundation
Since 2018
building and running the platform with the foundation
4 roles
admin, teacher, student, and parent in one platform
MTSS
tiered support built into how the platform works
SEL
check-ins, classroom tools, and analytics dashboards
Your turn

The next system on this page could be yours.

Tell us the challenge in plain language. We scope the work on complexity, commit to the figure in the room, and stay for the years after launch.

Next story

Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana

The from-scratch platform running Indiana's largest food bank, from neighbor ordering to the drive-thru and the warehouse floor.

Read it →