Website Redesign

Original photo by Sunu Foundation

Duration: 3-week sprint

Tools: Google Forms, Excel, NVivo, SketchApp

QUICK FACTS

↓ the details ↓

The Sunu Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in the US, helping to support children’s education in Senegal. To help the Foundation redesign its website in line with its business goals for 2020-2022, I conducted research and analyses to better understand the organization’s operational objectives and dig deep into donor behaviors, preferences, and motivations for supporting nonprofit organizations (NPOs).

Similar to many nonprofit organization (NPO) websites, Sunu Foundation’s site has a lot of potential to increase its donor engagement in charitable giving. However, compared to other NPOs, their site does not clearly communicate its mission and call-to-action to donate as much as it could to boost online donations.

By exploring donors’ motivations, behaviors, and preferences in charitable giving, the research will help inform the redesign of Sunu Foundation’s website to encourage donor engagement.

Research Methods

business analysis — quaNtitative survey — competitive analysis — swot analysis

The research I conducted unveiled these insights:

• Donors want to know what the organization is about and how donor contributions are used. This is especially a key motivation for those who have given to organizations beyond a one-time contribution.

• Measurable impact and financial transparency are also important to donors when they’re thinking about organizations to support.

• Among those surveyed, donors gave to charities multiple times in 2019, both monetary and non-monetary.

• Almost half of donors gave to charities focused on both international and domestic (in the US and Canada) efforts.

interviewing the founder

In speaking with Sunu’s founding director, I learned about the organization, its priorities for the next 1-2 years, and plans for future growth. First, it is clear that the organization is dedicated and passionate about contributing to improving Senegal’s educational infrastructure for children to have the best learning environments possible. Mr. Diouf, the founder, believes funding these efforts “gives hope that others are investing in the potential for children to succeed” and learn in spaces that support their basic needs. He himself grew up in Senegal and understands firsthand what is like to go to school in a place where basic needs fell short. “We would be lucky to even have a chalkboard in our classroom,” he shared while describing his grade school years.

The Sunu Foundation’s efforts so far have supported learning at all ages, even with students as young as 2. They focus heavily on building better learning environments through renovation and construction. They strive to provide every student with a backpack and school supplies. Sunu also holds a free annual program camp (JAM camp) where students go on field trips, engage in games and recreation, and make arts and crafts.

ORGANIZATION PRIORITIES

• Renovate classrooms and improve school building quality

• Provide basic hygienic systems and equipment for schools, such as a bathrooms/latrines

• Offer school supplies to students, including backpacks

• Support students to enroll in summer education camp

Translating Contributions to Tangibles

I was curious about how Sunu’s efforts looked in real time, so I asked: What are some tangible examples for how donors’ funds are used? Like, what does $1, $10, or $20 buy? How do specific monetary amounts translate into outputs or outcomes for your students Some examples he provided:

• $17 will fund a student for Sunu’s 4-week program camp

• $15 will also provide a year’s worth of school supplies for one student, along with a backpack

Plans for Future Growth

1. Develop corporate partnerships to sponsor Sunu as a means to fund their priorities.

2. Publishing a report that includes metrics and measures.

3. Coordinate a mission trip to allow folks to see action on-the-ground in Senegal. The announcement would happen in 2020, with plans for the mission trip in 2022.

I developed an 8-question survey that asked about the types of organizations people donate to, how often they donated, and what motivates them to support a nonprofit organization beyond a one-time donation. I administered the survey in mid-December 2019 and framed questions to capture most recent behaviors during the 2019 year.

A total of 20 unduplicated users took the survey, representing the U.S. and Canada., who did some charitable giving in 2019.

organization focus

In asking what kind of organizations donors’ contribute to (only to organizations doing international work; only organizations doing domestic work; or both), survey findings showed the breakdown to the right.

The key is that seems to be near-even split with how many people contribute to organizations focused on international efforts vs. domestics vs. both.

HOW OFTEN USERS DONATED

I asked donors about their donating behaviors in 2019. Since it was mid-to-late December at the time of survey administration, the frequency here is assumed to be accurate if not near-accurate since it looks retrospectively at a specific time frame.

The key finding is that the majority of donors chose to donated funds or items multiple times during the year. For instance, the median number of times users donating funds is between 4-5.

favorite organizations to donate to

With an open-ended question, I asked donors to name 1 or 2 favorite organizations they contribute to. Coding the responses showed that there were issue areas more prevalent than others. The top three were:

• Humanitarian relief

• Employment training, job security, and economic stability

• Animal rights

A key observation is that none of the donors listed education organizations as their favorites to support.

going beyond one-time donations to Nonprofits

Using NVivo software to distill donors’ motivations for going beyond a one-time donation, I uncovered these themes*, bubble size based on how often each topic emerged in the data:

*Not all themes are captured here - only those mentioned at least 2 times are reflected in the image above.

The key finding is that donors are motivated by a strong belief in what the organization does in their cause and mission, as well as knowing what the impact of their work looks like.

Donors’ Top Priorities

I asked users to rank what is most important to them about an organization when they’re thinking about supporting a nonprofit in general. In looking at the top three most frequent, I observed the following:

Consistent with the findings from the previous question, understanding the organization’s mission and understanding its measurable impact (both in a social sense and a financial sense) remain critical for donors’ charitable support.

In addition to the survey, I did a competitive analysis to get a better sense of what other organizations in a similar field are doing. These agencies represent a combination of domestic and international education. Sunu Foundation might draw inspiration from other NPOs in including the similar aspects that users value, like impact metrics and financial reports to show transparency.

Strengths: One unique thing is that Mr. Diouf as the founder — he is someone who has directly experienced the low-resource learning environments in Senegal. Not every organization founder has that experience for themselves. He has a sense of empathy and compassion to give back to his community as someone with a shared lived experience similar to the children he is hoping to help in his birth country.

Weaknesses: Sunu Foundation’s website has a lot of potential to embed its values and other key aspects typical with other NPO websites. Compared to other education-based NGOs, their site does not clearly communicate its mission and call-to-action to donate as much as it could.

Opportunities: Taking the data from interviewing the founder and from the competitive analysis, there’s a lot of room for improvement to translate Sunu Foundation’s values and identity into its website. Also, Mr. Diouf’s story is a compelling one and can be revised to inspire other people to give to Sunu’s cause for improving educational environments.

Threats: Foundation’s resources to manage the website content (e.g., there’s not enough time) is limited. The learning curve might be tough for existing staff members of Sunu (e.g., site needs to be easy to change and modify when needed), but a UX designer may be able to work with a developer on WordPress, or to explore SquareSpace which is immensely user-friendly at all levels.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR SUNU FOUNDATION

• How might you tell donors about Sunu’s mission and how donations are spent?

  • Plainly and succinctly explain the mission, vision, and approach on the landing page.

  • Tell users where their contributions go and how they are used.

• How might you redesign the website layout and information architecture with a call-to-action?

  • Sketch and test ideas to explore a reformat with a call-to-action.

  • Test mental models with users to see how they might organize information on Sunu’s website or conduct user testing to see how easy it is for them to complete tasks on the site.

• Develop metrics for impact and financial transparency.

  • Consider how Sunu will measure its progress and report out on it for your donors on the website.

• Consider a strategic plan for newsletters or blog updates and test with donors.

  • Though getting the latest news is not within donors’ top priorities per the survey, Sunu can still leverage storytelling and updates, and later test the efficacy of newsletter/blog updates, ensuring there is consistent writing “voice.” between the newsletters and site.

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