Case Study: Social-enterprise Kinvolved achieves higher student attendance and equitable distance learning with Twilio

How Kinvolved Builds Digital Community to Improve Attendance and Facilitate Distance Learning

Kinvolved is a social enterprise focused on reducing chronic absenteeism and improving equity in K–12 education. Faced with a national problem—about 7 million U.S. children miss a month or more of school—and exacerbated by COVID‑19 when districts discovered outdated contact data and lost touch with many families, Kinvolved set out to keep students connected to school through positive, relationship‑building outreach rather than punitive messaging.

They built KiNVO, an SMS‑first attendance and communications platform that uses Twilio APIs (messaging, voice, lookup, notify) to verify mobile numbers, send two‑way messages translated into 80+ languages, and even deliver PDFs for distance learning. Results included rapid onboarding and use during the pandemic (over 200% usage increase), concrete contact wins such as P.S. 153 reaching 470/500 families and eventually 100% contact, a 15% rise in new district partners, and measurable improvements in student engagement and attendance.

Kinvolved

Patrick McLaughlin

Director of Marketing