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Sydney Dogs and Cats Home have to raise more than $6.4 million FAST

Sydney Dogs and Cats Home need money to cover the cost of running their animal shelter and building a new facility at Kurnell.

There is a sense of urgency because their current facility is slated for redevelopment and they need to move the animals to a new home in early 2021.

In this project, we wanted to find ways to increase donations, maximise their fundraising efforts, and build greater engagement with visitors to the website.

Sydney Dogs and Cats Home at a Glance

Converting Visitors to Donors through Strategic Design

Our research has shown that people are more willing to donate if the organisation’s values align with their personal values.  

In addition, they want to know how their donations will be spent.

What’s equally important is having a short and user-friendly donation form that lets people donate effortlessly.

Our proposed solution that’s being rolled out in phases has been developed keeping these key takeaways in mind. Our solution has improved donor engagement and inspired new levels of generosity. What a purrfect outcome!

How can we motivate people to donate? 

Several psychological and contextual factors dictate donor behaviour

We wanted to understand people’s attitudes towards donating. Through our surveys and contextual inquiries, we reached out to a diverse group of people. We targeted people who had never heard of Sydney Dogs and Cats Home before as well as those closely connected to the organisation.

We also interviewed people who owned pets (including those who had adopted a pet from the organisation) and those who weren’t pet owners.

Our objective was to find out what prompted people to give money to charitable institutions.

People don’t donate if the non-profit’s values don’t align with their own

We surveyed 61 participants and discovered that 70 percent donate to animal shelters amongst the other organisations they support. 72 percent also said animal welfare was extremely important to them 

However, the majority donate only if they trust the organisation and understand its values and mission.

 Participants said they value transparency – they want to know how their donations will be spent. They also want to know the kind of work the organisation does to help the animals.

$6.4 million is a large amount. Can $2 make a difference?

While synthesising the data we collected through our initial research, we discovered that people think they need a higher income to be able to donate a reasonable amount of money to help organisations.

Some donors also need dollar handle prompts or descriptions of what the amount they give could buy the animals or the shelter. In short, donors want to see the personal impact of their donation.

Do people donate through the website? Identifying the preferred donation channel

We wanted to identify how people typically donate so we could come up with a solution to help Sydney Dogs and Cats Home raise the money they need to cover their increasing costs.

Majority of the donors use the organisation’s website to give money. They’re also more likely to donate if the donation form is easily accessible and quick to fill.

Visitors to the site don’t want to donate- they want to adopt a pet.

This was the biggest roadblock for the organisation. While the website was very successful in many ways, it wasn’t converting visitors to donors. Majority of the visitors used the website to adopt an animal or look for a lost pet.  

So, we carefully deliberated over the analytics and tracked the customer’s journey to find ways to engage with users and identify opportunities for improvement.

Our research was certainly pointing us in the right direction. We had to redefine the customer journey to match the needs of the users and the business. The end goal was clear – we wanted to direct traffic towards the donations page.

How can the organisation encourage people to make recurring donations?

Nearly 80 percent of users were first-time visitors. Our goal was to find a way to make the website more engaging and efficient. We wanted users to find the things they’re looking for and learn more about the organisation as they navigate the website.

The main idea behind it was to showcase the work the organisation does. We did this in order to improve engagement with users and attract recurring donations.

Our initial audit of the website brought to light several usability issues. We wanted to address these in our redesign to make the website as user friendly as possible and inspire recurring donations.

People would donate if they had more knowledge about the organisation. They also want to know how the shelter spends the donation money that it has received.

Most people are likely to donate money to animal shelters. However, there are a few factors that matter.

Donors want to know the following:

• Whether their donations are being used wisely and it’s making a difference in the world.

• That their donations are helping animals in need and not being used solely towards administrative costs.

• Whether they strongly identify with the cause.

• If the organisation’s values align with their personal values.

• Whether the minimum donation amount is low.

Other insights from our research

•  Visitors couldn’t find the blog on the Sydney Dogs and Cats Home website. They weren’t aware of the interesting pet stories that were posted online.

• Some donors preferred making donations to specific pets.

• A certain few wanted to remain anonymous while donating.

• Some donors liked the idea of announcing their donations on their social media networks.

Informing people about the purpose of the organisation and pointing them towards donations

We wanted to raise awareness about the kind of work the organisation does. The goal was to let people get a real sense of time, commitment, and effort that goes into running a charitable pound.

We sat down with the fundraising team to identify core issues they faced. They offered a few reasons as to why they felt people were not donating more money to the organisation.

One thing was sure- we had to think strategically about how our redesign could support the objectives of both the organisation and its users.

Rethinking the sitemap to lead visitors to the donations page

We mapped a new customer journey to direct people not just to the adoptions page but also the donations and fundraising page.

We liked how the new redesign showcased stories about the pets and directed people to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes.

With the new design, visitors could also donate to specific pets and share their donations via social media.

Our initial ideas were well received except for minor change requests

Sydney Dogs and Cats home had a message they wanted to get across to potential donors. Unlike most other animal shelters that display photographs of sick and helpless animals, they wanted to showcase photos of healthy and happy pets in their care.

Rethinking the content we had initially chosen.

We had suggested tweaking the content in order to evoke emotions from readers and visitors, but the organisation wanted us to focus on ‘happy pet stories’ and the beautiful tales of people adopting new pets or finding lost ones.

Telling readers about the great things that the staff continue to do to reminds people that the animals are the ‘real stars’ here. It also conveys the mission of the organisation and encourages more people to give generously. We, therefore, decided to rewrite some of the content we had created. It would increase engagement with both new and repeat visitors to the site.

Better engagement and an increase in conversion

At the end of 3 weeks, we found that our design helped the organisation raise more money and engage with visitors.

Visitors could now easily donate to specific pets and share their fundraising efforts with on social media.

Within a week of implementing some of the changes we recommended, the organisation raised around $5000 for a specific pet named Chloe.

We proposed a donations page that told a compelling story about the pets and the animal shelter. We also suggested using dollar handles to indicate what a specific amount of money could buy. Lastly, we redesigned the form, keeping in mind that a short and visually appealing form results in more conversions.

We believe Sydney Dogs and Cats Home can inspire people to give more generously by updating the content on their website. There are certain sections on the website like the vision and mission page and the fundraising page that need more content.

Users also want to know more about the adoption process so we suggested adding that information to the ‘Adopt’ page. It would also reduce the pressure of having to answer so many enquiries over the phone.

What I took away from this project

When you’re working on projects that are shorter in duration, you have to timebox effectively. What I’ve also observed is that things change on the fly. It’s important to be flexible and change your strategy around planning or gathering data when things don’t go as planned.

I’ve also learned that it’s important to get feedback early and communicate your findings with the business as you go. Bring your clients along on the journey with you so there are no big surprises for them or for you at the end.