Client:
Leadership Metro RichmondLocation
Richmond, VAClient Industry:
NonprofitLeadership Metro Richmond (LMR) has worked to improve racial, gender and socioeconomic disparities in the region’s community leadership positions since 1980, with Leadership Quest as their flagship leadership development program. Over nearly 50 years, 2,000 leaders have gone through the program, and it remains a pillar of the Greater Richmond community.
The Problem
The Team Outgrew Its Tools
During the 2020 pandemic, LMR needed to act quickly to move Leadership Quest from its long-time in-person retreat and seminar format to a virtual learning platform and tapped Xponent21 for the task. The initial iteration of a virtual Leadership Quest was developed using a Learning Management System (LMS) plugin on a WordPress site. That original setup got LMR through a fast pivot to virtual learning, and it served the program well for several years.
Leadership Quest looks different today. The program now runs in a hybrid format, pairing in-person sessions with an always-on digital resource center, rather than the fully virtual model it needed in 2020. Six years of advances in web technology have also changed what a strong learning platform can offer on a nonprofit budget.
LMR needed a platform built around how the program actually runs now: hybrid, matured, and shaped by everything learned since that first rapid build in 2020.
The Solution
A Custom Platform Built to Keep Pace
In 2026, LMR came to us again to update their virtual learning platform for Leadership Quest. That’s when we built QuestConnect.
QuestConnect is a custom application built to serve the specific needs that Leadership Quest had developed since that first virtual version. Built using React and TypeScript, QuestConnect supports all aspects of Leadership Quest courses, including sessions, modules, assignments, and immersion project teams, while providing a reimagined admin experience on the back end of the site.
Problems Solved
Site Speed
QuestConnect loads quickly and is fast to manage.
Always-Current Contacts
When someone updates their email inside QuestConnect, it updates platform-wide automatically, so there’s no separate contact list to maintain by hand.
Admin Autonomy
LMR’s team manages onboarding, user access, and communications independently, without needing a developer involved in each new class rollout.
Improved Communications
Automated notifications, admin announcements, and reminders keep every class informed and prepared without manual follow-up.
Low-Lift Onboarding
An admin invite tracker and self-serve password and login help give LMR a smoother, more scalable process built around how the program runs today.
Program participants can lean on an in-app guided walkthrough of the platform, FAQs, and a notification preference center to customize their user experience.
Faster Support
The integrated feedback tool is wired into our AI connectors, so support tickets are resolved in hours instead of days, and resolution times keep getting faster as the system matures.
Additional Features
- Discussion forums carry conversations forward between sessions, with attachments and per-user email preferences so nothing important gets buried.
- A classmates directory and member profiles help cohorts build the same familiarity online that they’d build in a retreat room, and project teams keep collaboration organized between meetings.
- A shared resource library puts materials in one place, so finding what you need doesn’t require digging through old emails.
- Guided in-app tour, help center, and admin documentation let new cohorts and admins get oriented on their own, no support ticket required.
- In-app feedback lets users submit an issue and track it to resolution, without ever leaving the platform.
The Results
More Efficiency, Accuracy, and Time Back in the Day
QuestConnect gave LMR’s team their time back. Because the platform works as well for an in-person retreat as it does for an online module, LMR can run each part of Leadership Quest the way it actually happens now, without being boxed into a rigid format. Since program materials, resources and notifications now live in one place, staff spend less time answering individual questions from participants and more time running the program. Invite-based onboarding also means each new cohort sees exactly what’s meant for them, year after year. Because LMR owns QuestConnect outright, those savings continue well beyond this first year, for as long as the program runs.
“Xponent21 was incredible throughout the process of creating our Learning Management System, QuestConnect. Collaboration was seamless, and the Xponent21 team was attentive to our LMS needs and level of experience with tech, often suggesting features and layouts that greatly enhanced our initial plans. Our feature requests, bug fixes, and feedback messages were all handled in a timely fashion, which was greatly appreciated by our small but mighty team. The LMS has increased capacity for our team members, because it includes program materials, resources, and notification features that greatly cut down on the need to respond to multiple individual inquiries. Thank you, Xponent21!”
- Vikki Keszey, Director of Operations, LMR
Participants have noticed the difference too. For many, QuestConnect has made it easier to stay engaged with their peers and the program between sessions.
“As a member of the LMR Class of 2027, I use QuestConnect before every session, and it’s become the place where our class actually stays connected between meetings. Much of the prework asks us to post comments and reflections, so you see how classmates are thinking before you’re ever in the room together. Having our reflections, assessments, feedback, and agendas for both working sessions and full class meetings in one place keeps me organized and on track.”
- Will Willis, Leadership Quest Class of 2027
The Partnership: Built to Keep Evolving
Because Xponent21 built QuestConnect specifically for Leadership Quest, it’s designed to evolve as the program’s needs change. Feature requests and feedback come straight to our development team through the in-app tool, so the platform keeps improving as each new class of leaders comes through.
Technology That Works as Hard as Your Mission
Nonprofits do important work with lean teams, and the tools they rely on should take work off their plates. Xponent21 builds custom platforms, websites, and digital strategies that help mission-driven organizations operate more efficiently and connect more meaningfully with the people they serve, and we keep building alongside you as your programs evolve.
If your organization has outgrown its current tools, we’d love to talk about what a better fit could look like. Schedule a call to talk about how we can help your organization achieve its mission more easily.
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