Upendo Kwanza
How to strategically create a digital space that genuinely connect with users and inspire them to support and sponsor our cause
Upendo Kwanza is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering Tanzanian students
by providing them with the educational resources they need to overcome socioeconomic barriers and achieve their full potential.
Strengthen the organizational trust to attract sponsors and increase donations
Since most support came from the personal networks of board members. Upendo Kwanza wanted to diversify its audience. Therefore, we decided to implement strategies to engage new donors and sponsors
Enhance the website experience
Improve user experience and user flow on the website to make it easier for people to donate and partner with the organization.
Build brand trust and credibility
Establish a consistent and accurate representation of our mission, vision and values that resonates with potential supporters and enhances their understanding of the challenges faced by our students
Consistent and Transparent Communication
We needed to be transparent about how donations are used by providing detailed reports and updates on the impact of contributions.
We employed an iterative design process using several UX Research and Design methods
1. Stakeholders' Interview
2. Building the Organization's Brand Identity
03. Discovery Research
04. Website revamp
05. Testing and iteration
Facilitated meetings with board members to refine Upendo K. vision and strategic priorities, focusing on long-term goals
Mission and Impact
The organization is dedicated to supporting schools and students across Tanzania, focusing on removing barriers, creating opportunities, and sharing youth stories.
Funding Strategy
The organization plans to secure donations through corporate partnerships, fundraising events, and individual contributions.
Opportunities for Growth
The interviews identified a need for Upendo Kwanza to build trust and achieve better team alignment, including establishing clear communication and collaboration strategies within the organization.
Research Priorities
Needs to research funding sources, donor motivations, and engagement preferences to enhance fundraising strategy and boost donor involvement.
As part of the initiatives to build organizational trust, better branding representation was needed to create a more consistent and authentic image
Led by our UX strategist, Paschalia, we collaborated with a marketing specialist Nick to create a cohesive communication strategy to ensure consistency in writing style, choice of words, voice, and tone across all digital channels.
I actively participated in conversations that contributed to shaping the organization's mission, vision, and values and communication style guide
First, we conducted a competitive analysis focused on assessing the content and visual design elements of competitors websites
Given our goal to build brand trust and transparency to attract new donors, we found that the most common themes from competitors website that help achieve this are:
Transperancy
Emotional Connection
Story Telling and Branding
Impact Metric
Security Ensurance
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Then, we moved into a more detailed content analysis revealing strategies for information architecture, and navigation structure
This analysis helped us identify best practices, and refining our own website's content and information architecture to enhance usability, improve SEO performance, and ensure a more intuitive user experience.
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User flow diagram
we outline the steps users take to complete 3 main tasks, donation, fundraising, and signing up to become brand ambassador. This exercise helped us understand our users their needs and pain points
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Wireframes and Testing
Following several iterations of sketching and low-fidelity wireframing and user testing, we distilled the design down to 8 key pages for our MVP
Initial User Testing - 01
During the user testing phase, we identified two primary user categories donors, and partners. Our main goals were
01. Identify different users characteristics and motivations.
02. Explore how we can increase users' trust in our organization.
03. Determine the best way to display information on the website.
