2022 - Results

In 2022, INKUA experienced significant growth, expanding from a core team of 7 to over 3,700 members. Despite receiving over 30,000 applications, the organization faced challenges in interviewing and onboarding such a large number of young professionals. The HR team stepped up to the challenge, with more than 150 volunteers conducting up to 30 onboarding interviews per day. 

INKUA also achieved remarkable success in terms of its social media presence, with a monthly average of over 50,000 impressions on social media platforms and a staggering 20,000 website views recorded in December alone.

However, due to rapid growth, the organization struggled to assign and properly manage all of the new participants, resulting in a limited number of active participants and a reliance on external tools such as WhatsApp groups. Despite these challenges, INKUA was able to help thousands of participants gain professional experience creating projects that make the world a better place, and will continue to grow and improve in 2023.

We will divide this report into 3 parts: Participants, Social Media Reach, and Projects.

 

Point 1: Participants

We experienced an unprecedented growth in June 2022, when our LinkedIn page began to see an acceleration in growth. To better serve and learn from our audience, we implemented a policy of limiting active participation in INKUA to a maximum of 3 or 6 months. Unfortunately, this was due to the fact that we didn't have the necessary processes or infrastructure in place to effectively manage such a large influx of new participants. As a result, many of them had to rely on WhatsApp groups to stay engaged and participate in the community. Onboarding new members became our biggest challenge.

In summary, the organization grew from a core team of 7 people, to a core team of several hundred and over 2,000 active participants near the end of the year. More than 80% of the people that finished or had to cancel their active participation remained as members and still participate in events or as advisors for specific teams and projects.  Our applications grew at roughly the same speed as our LinkedIn account, with 90% of our participants hearing about us through that channel. 

 

Approximate number of applications to join INKUA per month

After a tenfold increase in applications in just one month, we needed to change the interview process and policies to make it faster. But we didn't have the resources to interview and onboard everyone properly. Unfortunately, a lot of applications had to be turned away.

On the other hand, we had several channels to apply: LinkedIn, GitHub, a form on the website, two email accounts, Discord, and our social media. This became a problem because we were unable to effectively manage the volume of applications, leading us to close all of these channels. We know if we wouldn't make this mistake, applications could have been much more.

All participants who were accepted were interviewed one-on-one by the HR team, which had to expand to over 150 volunteers to handle the volume of applicants. The team was able to conduct up to 30 interviews per day. However, the number of teams we could manage was limited.

Growth from May to December

Point 2: Social Media and Website

Our main social media channel is LinkedIn, where we currently have 28,152 followers! In the last 4 months, our post impressions are over 50,000. We also had 20,000 website views in December. Overall, 2022 was a successful year in terms of our reach and we anticipate even further growth in the future.

This is our main LinkedIn page. As you can see, we had a significant number of views and unique visitors. In addition, our followers have been growing steadily over time.

 Point 3: Projects

We are in the process of writing and revising articles about the projects created by our participants for publication on our new website and blog. These can be found at www.inkua.de/blog 

Here are some out-of-context pictures that show what INKUA has been up to in 2022: