Activity: Scaling for Community Resilience

Objective

Test your social impact app's ability to handle rapid growth while maintaining community trust and service quality.

Crisis Simulation Scenario

Your mental health peer support app (500 users) faces a local crisis. Within 2 hours:

• User requests spike to 2,000 concurrent users
• Crisis counselor volunteers are overwhelmed
• Media attention brings both support and exploitation risks
• Community trauma requires culturally sensitive response

Phase One: Technical Scaling (10 minutes)

Load Testing Simulation:

const simulateTrafficSpike = async () => {
  const criticalFeatures = [
    'crisis_chat_connection',
    'peer_support_matching', 
    'resource_directory_access'
  ];
  
  for (let users = 50; users <= 2000; users += 200) {
    const results = await loadTest(criticalFeatures, users);
    if (results.averageResponseTime > 3000) {
      console.warn(`Performance degradation at ${users} users`);
    }
  }
};

Breaking Point Analysis:

• At what user count do response times exceed 3 seconds?
• Which features fail first under load?
• How do community dynamics change under stress?

Phase 2: Resource Management (10 minutes)

Volunteer Capacity Framework:

const manageVolunteerCapacity = (crisisLevel) => {
  const availableVolunteers = getCurrentVolunteers();
  const projectedNeed = calculateCrisisDemand(crisisLevel);
  
  if (projectedNeed > availableVolunteers.capacity) {
    return {
      immediateActions: [
        'activateEmergencyVolunteerList',
        'partnerWithProfessionalServices',
        'activateGroupSupportSessions'
      ],
      ethicalRationing: {
        prioritizeHighRisk: true,
        groupSimilarRequests: true,
        maintainQualityStandards: true
      }
    };
  }
};

Phase 3: Community Protection (10 minutes)

Partnership Screening: During crisis, organizations offer help. Rapid assessment:

• Do they already serve our community?
• Are they requesting user data?
• Can they start helping within 24 hours?
• Will they continue after media attention ends?

Success Metrics:

• User retention during/after crisis
• Average wait time for crisis support
• Community satisfaction with response
• Zero safety incidents

Deliverable

Design crisis scaling protocol including automatic responses, community activation, and non-negotiable quality safeguards.

📤 Submit Your Work

Complete this activity and submit your work through the Activity Submission Form