Aid Atlas - British Red Cross
6 week capstone project
April 2024
The Problem
The British Red Cross is an international charity committed to helping people in crisis. With a global network of volunteers, BRC responds to natural disasters, conflicts, and individual emergencies worldwide. As the world faces increasing challenges, including frequent natural disasters and global conflicts, the need for support has never been greater. Despite raising £220 million last year, BRC needs more funds to address these rising challenges effectively.
Our mission was to design a product for the fundraising innovation team to explore and test ambitious, insight-led fundraising opportunities. The goal is to ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the organization so it can continue supporting people in crisis now and in the future.
The Challenge
The British Red Cross had been exploring an opportunity based on the insight that audiences are looking for certainty, control, clarity and calm in a world that increasingly feels overwhelmingly chaotic, threatening, confusing and fake.
How might we create a new business model for donating that utilises emerging technology to engage new audiences?
Discover
Desk research, quantitative, qualitative and stake holder interview. Competitor analysis
Define
Who are we designing for? As part of the brief, the British Red Cross Fundraising innovation team actually provided us with two existing personas that had been pulled together from their own in-depth research with Opinium Surveys. In order to ensure best UX research practice we requested the original key insights from their discovery phase which showed the strong foundations that they were built on and proved their validity before we began designing for them.
Michaela - The Headspace Preserver
Lucas - The Sceptical Altruist
User research & insights
"Knowing that my contribution made a difference reassures me that i'm supporting effective initiatives and encourages me to continue donating."
Data synthesis with Dovetail AI
The qualitative research plays a crucial role in gaining deep insights into user behaviour, preferences and user experiences.
Up until recently, the process of synthesizing qualitative insights is often challenging and time-consuming as you are dealing with large volumes of data while trying to uncover meaningful patterns.
For this project we embraced using Dovetail, a powerful AI UX research tool that can streamline your data synth workflow and maximize your productivity.
Key learnings
Transparency & trust
Personal experience
Local community
Autonomy & agency
Meet Cody. A new persona uncovered in our research.
Cody is a 23 year old biochemical engineering student who lives in London and donates to things she feels a close connection to.
She was formed after our research when we found most people donate to causes they feel a personal connection with.
Cody is our conscientious contributor, on the younger side of the demographic.
She values:
Donates to causes she feels a personal/close connection with
Concern with lack of transparency and trust with different charities
Fundraising fatigue and overwhelmed with constant donation requests
Volunteers her time to local community appeals
Understanding users with experience mapping & empathy mapping
User Stories
Problem statements
The British Red Cross needs to engage younger donors by tapping into the fast-growing cryptocurrency market, which exceeds $300 million globally, to secure a stable and diversified revenue stream. To achieve this, BRC must build a platform that offers transparency, trust, and a sense of agency, enabling donors to confidently support causes that matter to them, both locally and globally. Success will be measured by reaching £1 million in annual donations through this new platform.
Develop
To address these challenges, we will implement a comprehensive project management overhaul. We'll introduce a task assignment system, enhance communication channels, and establish a clear file organization structure. A centralized hub will provide easy access to vital data, improving decision-making and evaluation. We'll also create standardized project update and performance metric documentation. This holistic solution will streamline processes, reduce stress, and elevate work quality, enabling us to better meet client expectations and support our business growth.
How might we design a digital platform that…
Harnesses new emerging technology
Meets the needs of the personas
Has the potential to generate £1 million+ in annual revenue
User flows
Rapid ideation & sketching
We started the develop phase with rapid ideation sessions using a technique called crazy 8s.
Due to the nature of the brief and the breath of potentially emerging technologies to explore we went really wide with ideas before narrowing down to 5.
5 initial concepts
World map / interactive globe
Cryto blockchain impact tracker
NFT art auction
Wallet pot saver
VR skills
Desirability, feasibility and viability
A more focused approach
Crypto blockchain impact tracker
World map / interactive globe
NFT reward badges
3 core design principles
Transparency & trust
Autonomy
Sense of impact
Exploring crypto as an opportunity
Building the design system
Deliver
To address these challenges, we will implement a comprehensive project management overhaul. We'll introduce a task assignment system, enhance communication channels, and establish a clear file organization structure. A centralized hub will provide easy access to vital data, improving decision-making and evaluation. We'll also create standardized project update and performance metric documentation. This holistic solution will streamline processes, reduce stress, and elevate work quality, enabling us to better meet client expectations and support our business growth.
Donating bitcoin to an appeal flow
Receiving an impact update flow
Metrics
