Navigating Life 
How NuPath Doubled Staff Engagement with a March Madness Challenge
What happens when you combine friendly competition and a human services technology platform?
For NuPath, a Massachusetts provider supporting adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities across a wide range of residential, day, employment, and community-based programs, the answer was a major increase in staff engagement, family connection, and digital documentation activity.
Already using Navigating Life for family communication and instant clinical data logging, NuPath transformed a one-month internal competition into habits and engagement patterns that lasted long after the tournament ended.
New Tools Don't Adopt Themselves
Every post on Navigating Life is a moment a family gets to see. A photo, a milestone, a daily update. It all adds up to a clearer picture of the people they love and the care they’re receiving. When staff are actively sharing, families feel more connected and informed.
But even with strong organizational adoption, sustaining high engagement across busy teams and multiple programs requires ongoing attention. No matter how good a tool is, building new habits and maintaining momentum takes time, and sometimes a little extra push.
Where many leadership teams might look to mandates, requirements, or enforcement to influence staff behavior, NuPath tested a gamified approach.
Roger Mumper manages technology adoption and usage at NuPath, including Navigating Life. When March Madness, the bracket-style single-elimination collegiate basketball tournament, returned this year, he had an idea: bring that same energy into the organization. And the Navigating Life March Madness Engagement Bracket was born.
48 groups, each representing actual NuPath residential and day programs made up of direct support staff teams, were entered into a single-elimination bracket. Each week, programs competed head-to-head, logging posts, photos, and clinical data entries toward a combined engagement score. Quality rules kept the competition honest and the data meaningful, barring spammy submissions or duplicate photos. The group with the highest score each round advanced until one team remained to claim the prize: a gift card and wireless charger for each member.
Once the seedings were locked and the first email went out, the heavy lifting was mostly done. Staff knew the rules, and they knew what they were competing for. Roger kept the energy high with ongoing video updates, congratulating top teams and highlighting close matchups. Meanwhile, Navigating Life’s admin portal made it easy to track engagement across all 48 groups in real time.
A Little Friendly Competition Goes a Long Way
The response was almost immediate. Staff were fired up, reaching out to Roger with questions about posting and logging, and keeping up with how their group was progressing compared to the others. By putting a number to engagement and building friendly rivalries into the approach, the competition created a new level of excitement and visibility across the organization.
"When I saw the results, I was excited. I expected a bump, but not quite the energy we saw. Staff, managers, and leadership all got into it. Let’s be honest, people love to win. Tapping into that competitive spirit helped us get the best out of staff while also celebrating the amazing moments they captured."
March 2026 Results
Increase in photo uploads
Increase in clinical data entries
Of groups doubled their engagement or more
The numbers backed it up. Posts jumped from 3,600 the month before to over 7,300 in March, nearly double. And it wasn’t just the groups that were already highly active leading the charge. Programs across the organization elevated their participation and engagement.
The Competition Ended, but the Engagement Didn't.
A whole month later, April’s numbers still came in well above NuPath’s pre-competition baseline — 59.5% higher, and holding onto 85% of March’s momentum, without any prizes or incentives driving it.
The pattern held at the group level too: 37 of 46 groups stayed above baseline in April, and 12 more than doubled it. While activity tapered slightly in May, engagement remained significantly elevated compared to pre-competition norms. Photo uploads were still 35.8% above the December–February baseline, while clinical data entries remained 46.6% higher. Looking across both post-competition months together, April and May averaged 47.5% more photos and 61.3% more clinical data than the baseline period.
Ongoing Results – April/May
After March Madness
Data provided by NuPath Inc.
The competition had ended, but the habit remained. What could have been a short-term spike instead became a lasting shift in behavior. What could have easily been a one-month spike has instead shifted staff behavior and resulted in substantially higher app usage.
"One of the most powerful parts of Navigating Life is that it makes the work visible. Families noticed and appreciated the increased number of videos and photos posted. Managers saw the effort, and staff got recognition for their efforts, and that recognition really helped drive the engagement."
Find Your Organization’s “March Madness”
Every organization has its own version of March Madness, something that already has staff attention and energy. The trick is finding ways to tap into it and build toward organizational goals from there. When you work with your team’s existing motivations instead of around them, it becomes much easier to encourage real, lasting change.
In the words of Roger Mumper, “Make it fun, meaningful, and positive. Don’t present Navigating Life as a chore; connect it to real impact. When staff enjoy it and see how it benefits them, they’ll stay engaged.”
Roger’s success came from knowing his team. What would get them excited, what would keep them honest, and what would make the work feel worth doing. That same thinking is available to any organization willing to sit down and ask: what already gets my staff going, and how can I build on that?
We work with organizations every day that are seeking to answer those questions. In a time when staff are tasked to do more with less and quality care can be invisible, bringing fun to the DSP role can have a real impact.