CASE STUDY: RESEARCH

Designing Fundraising Tools for the Creator Era

This research tested a prototype MVP – a tool to connect creators & influences with nonprofits to support their fundraising efforts via public donation matching on social media.

Methods

  • Product Walkthrough
  • Semi-structured Interviews

Findings

  • The MVP was structured around creators driving the donation match. But in speaking with both nonprofits and creators, I learned that a different model would be more successful – one where nonprofits initiate the matching process, and creators can then accept and publicize it.

Impact

  • The team pivoted the product to reflect a greater need for nonprofit initiative, and implemented additional UI changes to increase clarity, flow and understandability.

The Challenge

Our team saw an opportunity to increase funds raised by nonprofits through social media platforms – when creators and influencers shared their interest in a particular cause or organization by promoting a fundraiser, more donors gave. Our team wanted to see whether or not our prototype MVP – which created an option to match donations, built-into an existing fundraising tool – would bring more creator attention and donor giving.  

Answering Our Questions

The study employed a product walkthrough and semi-structured interviews to gather insights from both creators and nonprofit stakeholders. This approach allowed us to better understand the context of nonprofit’s fundraisers, and the interest of creators in public donation matching. The interviews revealed that the user structure of the MVP would not meet the needs of many users.

Impact

These insights drove the team to pivot the product to create better experiences for donors, creators, and nonprofits. Research findings also directed additional UI changes to improve clarity, flow, and overall understandability.

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