Write a brief that gets great work
What to put in the description so a strong team takes it on.
The description you write is what a professor reads when deciding whether to bring their students onto your project. A good one is specific about the outcome and honest about the context.
Cover these four things
- The outcome: what should be true at the end that is not true now.
- The context: what your organization does and why this matters to you.
- The deliverables: the concrete things you expect to receive.
- The constraints: timeline, tools, or anything students should know up front.
Example description
We are a 12-person nonprofit that runs after-school STEM programs. Our donation page converts poorly on mobile and we do not know why. Outcome: a redesigned mobile donation flow, backed by a short analysis of where the current one loses people. Deliverables: the analysis, a clickable prototype, and a one-page handoff for our developer. Timeline: 8 weeks. No code required; we will build from the prototype.
Tip
A tightly-scoped, real problem gets better work than a vague, ambitious one, because a professor can see exactly what their students would deliver.