One Hope United Chicago Non-Profit

Creative Design and Sales Page Development

web development case study for nonprofit visualfizz digital marketing chicago

Overview of The Brand

One Hope United is a 120-year-old non-profit organization, providing services and support to families and children in need. Early learning and child development, foster care, family counseling, and residential care are just a few of the services One Hope United offers to the 10,000 children, adults, and families they work with each year. The organization offers services in the Chicago area and Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida, and Missouri.

 

To keep a Non-Profit like One Hope United funded and operating smoothly takes a community. Helping would-be do-gooders seamlessly donate their time and money is an important, and ongoing, challenge. In previous years, during the holiday season when most people do their gift-giving and donating, One Hope United collected physical items, like clothes and toys, to distribute to the families they worked with. But a few years ago, the organization realized they had a chance to make a bigger impact by collecting funds for their year-round programs during this holiday season.

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Utilizing marketing strategies during the holiday season is a stressful undertaking for most businesses. Fundraising during the holiday season was even more challenging for One Hope United since most people prefer to give tangible gifts rather than donating cash. OHU decided that they needed to pair physical ‘gifts’ or benefits to each donor’s monetary gift to attach the same emotional connections to the donations as traditional gift giving.

 

One Hope United decided to launch a virtual Wishbook, where rather than donating a lump sum, donors could visualize what their money would fund. For example, $75 bought a new interview outfit for a teen’s first job. $50 purchased room decor for students in residential housing. $30 covered GED testing costs. Attaching a tangible item to each donation helped the donor create an emotional connection to their giving, and often encouraged them to give more. There was even an option to purchase the entire Wishbook for $1000, which many parishes, corporations, and individuals participated in.  

Creative Design and Redevelopment by VisualFizz

The partnership with VisualFizz began when the One Hope United team reached out to VisualFizz to discuss how VisualFizz could help their goal of increasing holiday donations. One Hope United knew they wanted to increase donations during the holiday season, but were unsure how best to use their digital marketing budget.

 

The knowledgeable team at VisualFizz sat down with OHU several times to understand their pain points, learn about the Non-Profit’s history and successes, and identify goals for the coming season. The VisualFizz team took the time to get to know OHU on a personal level to create that deep connection and truly understand their needs.

The largest barrier to entry for One Hope United was that while long-time donors responded well to the idea of the virtual Wishbook, these users simply weren’t converting. Once potential donors landed on the One Hope United site, they often left without purchasing an item or making a donation.

 

VisualFizz analyzed the landing pages and found that while the One Hope United’s message and mission were clear and relevant, the User Experience on the landing pages was lacking and not conducive to high conversions. Ultimately, this analysis informed the strategy decision to re-design the donation landing page to be more user-friendly and optimized for conversion. 

Landing Page Web Design and Development

VisualFizz knew One Hope United already had a strong donor base, but the clunky user interface and outdated brand voice on the donation page meant that donors often left the page before completing the transaction and purchasing a Wishbook item. VisualFizz recognized that the bounce rate on the Wishbook landing page was very high, and decided to execute an entire redesign. The team started the project with a rapidly-approaching, strict “end date” in mind – Giving Tuesday.

 

Giving Tuesday is a global day of online giving on the Tuesday after the shopping-intensive Black Friday and Cyber Monday internet holidays. Having the re-designed landing page up and running by Giving Tuesday would ensure that One Hope United could solicit the maximum number of donations as they kicked-off their giving season.

The web development team at VisualFizz started by updating the website to ensure quick load times. Then, VisualFizz optimized the brand design and transactional journey to lead customers through the checkout flow, adding in clear Call To Action buttons and CRO tactics to ensure donors did not get lost as they made their way to purchase. 

web development case study for nonprofit visualfizz digital marketing chicago results

Mobile optimization was key to the redevelopment strategy, as One Hope United saw a large percentage of their donations stemming from mobile users.

Results

3X more funds raised in Q4 than in the entire previous year.

On Giving Tuesday, One Hope United saw double the contributions than the previous year.

More “full Wishbook” Sales ($1,000 donations each) than ever before.

Summary Of Creative Design and Redevelopment

 

This strategic partnership was unique in that One Hope United came to VisualFizz without a clear action plan – they just knew they needed to improve their online presence in order to solicit the donations necessary to continue their life-changing work. Through a series of meetings and information sessions, VisualFizz worked with One Hope United to understand their needs and recommend a strategic action plan – all within their budget.

The result? More donations than ever before, and the chance to continue their invaluable work providing services for those who need help the most.