At a glance

Organisation Boingboing Foundation

Sector: Charity / Community Research / Social Justice

Solution: Virtual College Learning Management System (LMS) and Compliance Courses

Use Case: Compliance training, mandatory learning, staff development

Key Results:

• Centralised learning
• Improved reporting
• Greater learner engagement
• Flexible self-paced training

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About Boingboing Foundation

Boingboing Foundation is a community research organisation based in Blackpool that works where research, education and social justice intersect.

Rather than conducting research on communities, the organisation works with them, using participatory research to ensure people with lived experience help shape policy, services and social change.

With a growing workforce and an expanding programme of work, Boingboing Foundation wanted a learning solution that reflected its values—accessible, inclusive and empowering—while making compliance training significantly easier to manage.

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The Challenge

As the organisation grew, managing staff training became increasingly difficult.

Although Virtual College had been used previously for individual courses, learning was delivered on an ad hoc basis. Mandatory training, optional development courses and learner records were spread across different systems, making administration time-consuming and reporting difficult.

The team wanted to:

• Deliver a consistent onboarding experience for every employee
• Bring mandatory and optional learning together in one place
• Replace manual tracking with real-time reporting
• Give managers better visibility of learner progress
• Create a learning experience that was flexible and engaging for people with very different educational experiences

For Boingboing Foundation, accessibility was just as important as compliance.

Many members of staff work alongside young people who have experienced barriers to education, and some employees themselves had found traditional learning environments challenging.

Cy Karoonian, Project Team Manager, explained:

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Why Virtual College?

After seeing a demonstration of the platform, Boingboing Foundation recognised that Virtual College offered much more than online compliance training.

The platform provided:

A single learning hub

Mandatory training, management development and optional learning are all available through one branded portal.

Clear reporting

Managers can instantly see who has started, completed or not yet begun their assigned learning.

Flexible learning

Employees can complete courses at times that suit their workload rather than attending scheduled classroom sessions.

A branded experience

A customised portal reinforces organisational identity and helps employees see learning as part of everyday working life.

Emma Rowicki, Chief Executive Officer, explains:

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A Smooth Implementation

Introducing a new learning platform can feel daunting, particularly for a small organisation with limited internal resources.

Boingboing Foundation credits the Virtual College onboarding and Customer Success teams with making implementation straightforward.

The team received responsive support throughout onboarding, worked towards timescales that suited the organisation and quickly resolved any issues that arose.

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Early Results

Although the platform had only recently gone live, the organisation immediately noticed a change in how staff approached learning.

Rather than treating compliance training as a task to complete, employees began learning together, discussing course content and supporting one another through the process.

For an organisation committed to inclusive learning, this represented an important cultural shift.

Managers also benefited from dramatically improved oversight.

Instead of maintaining spreadsheets or separate records, they can now identify learner progress instantly and intervene early where additional support may be needed. Cy Karoonian, Project Team Manager, found:

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Empowering Learners

One of the biggest changes has been giving employees greater ownership over their learning.

Staff know what training they need to complete but can choose when and where they complete it, creating flexibility while maintaining accountability.

For Boingboing Foundation, this autonomy aligns perfectly with its wider organisational values.

Emma Rowicki explains:

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Supporting Future Growth

Boingboing Foundation currently has 13 employees and plans to recruit several more over the coming months.

With employees expected to complete approximately 20 courses each year, the organisation anticipates around 300 course completions annually through Virtual College.

By replacing fragmented learning processes with a single, scalable platform, the organisation is well positioned to support future growth while maintaining the personalised learning experience that reflects its mission.

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Results at a Glance

✅ One branded learning platform

✅ Mandatory and optional learning managed together

✅ Simple reporting and learner tracking

✅ Greater learner ownership

✅ Improved accessibility

✅ Flexible self-paced learning

✅ Strong employee engagement from day one

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One Connected Learning Experience

Emma Rowicki
Chief Executive Officer, Boingboing Foundation

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