In our biggest project to date we worked with Camfed to design a new website and online charity administration system. We focussed on revenue generation, community building and information delivery as the three key goals of the website. Other goals included building a fully bespoke web-based content management and website administration system that empowers Camfed staff to manage every aspect of the site and associated community activity.
Modern, on-brand website design
After thorough research into the not-for-profit market we realised early on that we had an opportunity to leverage design to position Camfed as the leader in the field of girls' education. Our design team wanted to ensure that the site was an evolution of the old site to ensure users weren't alienated by the change but also wanted to create a big screen, high impact experience that would stand shoulder to shoulder with the other big hitters in the online charity space. Camfed's beautiful imagery, videos and other multimedia made this process easier and we led with big, full colour images and typography to build engagement at the top of every page. Strong grids build familiarity and easy to use controls to search and filter content make finding content simple. The simple colour palette and clean white space design ensure that Camfed's multimedia delivers the visual impact it deserves.
Delivering the numbers
Delivering return on investment, whether to girls in Africa, to donors and other constituents is a critical part of Camfed's model. When you see that over half a million children are benefiting from Camfed's safety net fund, their numbers speak for themselves. We wanted to drill deeper into the numbers so we created the 'where we work section' that combines dynamic and interactive maps to show the spread of Camfed's work as well as per country statistic modules that allow the website user to drill down into the numbers through an interactive carousel. Individual country statistics are aggregated to deliver big numbers on the where we work landing page. Stay tuned for an interactive graph feature that will show the growth of Camfed's work over the organisation's lifetime.
Intelligent data model
Early on in the planning process we realised that this wasn't just another website. We had to find a way to ensure that Camfed's content and data was cleverly organized to ensure that users could find what they were looking for quickly whilst also giving them opportunities to discover related and associated content. The web application approach was the obvious answer and after a detailed information architecture and planning exercise we constructed a data model that connects content through the countries in which Camfed works. You can see this in action in the where we work section where the website automatically collects, organizes and presents content including news, stories, team members, statistics, maps, multimedia, funders and more that relate to a particular country. All Camfed staff have to do is tag content with specific key words in the administration system and the hard part is taken care of automatically. This type of approach to website design massively reduces administration and content overheads, organises information automatically and keeps users engaged for longer.
Fundraising and community building
The primary goal of the site is to raise online revenues. We leveraged modern online fundraising techniques to ensure that every website visitor feels that they can make a difference - whether signing up for email updates, spreading the word through fully integrated twitter, Facebook and other social mechanisms, or making a donation. We used closed loop and incentivisation techniques that ask donors to publicise their donation on their social networks, and on the website itself to both spread the word and inspire others. We extended the micro-appeals functionality that was so popular on the last iteration of Camfed's website to allow staff to quickly create micro-appeals, attach them to a particular country and feature them in specific areas of the site. We wanted to leverage the good will and networks of Camfed supporters so we created a feature that allows visitors to register and set up their own personal fundraising campaign with a financial target, user-generated content and social features that help them to spread the word. An ecard system completes the fundraising picture allowing individuals to make donations as gifts to others which are delivered via beautifully designed cards featuring pictures of Camfed's work.
Measuring success
Camfed builds website traffic through online advertising, massive twitter and Facebook communities and organic search. Camfed needed systems to measure the ongoing success of the website and their digital ROI. In response we put together a combination of measurement techniques including Google Analytics and conversion tracking, an online system to gather qualitative feedback and other systems including social measurement and email metrics. This combination provides Camfed with real time intelligence into the success of its online activities.
