What is the best way to reach new donors?
The organisation SOS Children’s Villages (SOS Villages for short) approached us with a request to create a new website which, in addition to simplifying and improving the user experience for its clients, would also attract more voluntary donors. These donors are one of the organisation’s main sources of funding, and therefore attracting and retaining them is crucial to its work. SOS Children’s Villages uses these funds not only to finance foster care, but also, for example
, preventive support for at-risk families, crisis support and halfway houses. We first investigated what motivates donors, who the target groups are, and how the donated funds are actually used. Based on the data gathered, our UX designers proposed a wireframe for the new website – simple and user-friendly. The cleverly designed homepage summarises everything a donor needs to know to make a decision as quickly as possible. The central feature is the option to choose directly between a one-off or regular donation of 200, 350 or 500 CZK.
Click and donate
The new wireframe confirmed that the quicker the process (in this case, one click on the main homepage banner to enter card payment details), the higher the chance of raising funds immediately. After all, the decision to donate money to a good cause is often a matter of seconds – this applies to street collections just as much as it does online.
Our brilliant graphic designer Petr has given the new website an eye-catching look full of photos and colours. He built on the client’s existing visual style and, as always, paid close attention to the details – Google Analytics, for example, shows just how effective a simple smiley face next to the ‘I WANT TO HELP’ button can be. People are playful, and Petr knows how to make the most of that :-).
Similarly, the colourful mosaic combined with photographs effectively informs website visitors about the real impact of SOS Children’s Villages’ activities. Even simple numbers can be fun to read when they’re presented graphically.
The other pages also clearly convey the mission of SOS Children’s Villages to the website visitor and naturally guide them towards conversion – that is, financial support.
Christmas fundraising campaign
We launched the website with the client in June and expected the greatest impact in the run-up to Christmas, when people’s willingness to contribute to a good cause is at its highest. The result was excellent. Compared to the previous year, the number of donors increased by 46% and the average donation amount by as much as 44%.
The new website also had to meet two further criteria:
- relatively quick implementation at low cost
- simple administration that any developer could take over
We succeeded on both counts – this time we built the solution on WordPress.
“Thanks to our professional collaboration with AITOM, SOS Children’s Villages has seen a significant increase in the number of donations made online, enabling us to help children even more effectively,” said Milan Palán of SOS Children’s Villages following the conclusion of the pre-Christmas campaign.
Two medals at the IEA 2019 competition
We had two reasons to celebrate with the SOS Children’s Villages project. Firstly, because of its success with donors, and secondly, because it also impressed the jury of the Internet Effectiveness Awards 2019. At the awards ceremony, we won two prizes for it!
- 1st place in the Portals and Community Projects category
- 1st place in the Non-profit Sector, Culture and Public Benefit Projects category
We are absolutely delighted that our work is having a real impact on the lives of children who have had a difficult start in life. SOS Children’s Villages plans to continue building its digital development on its collaboration with AITOM, and that is a great honour for us.