User Experience, Data Science & Technical Writing Services

Portfolio

Donor Development

[FEATURED CASE STUDY]

Redesigning the Donor Experience to Increase Engagement & Retention

Situation

During Covid, a time where businesses heavily relied on the digital landscape to survive the market, a donation platform was struggling to keep donors engaged. Within the mobile app, they saw a troubling churn rate.

Project Goals

Understand donor pain points and motivations to design a seamless, emotionally engaging experience that increases donations and retention.

Key Questions

  1. Why are donors not returning?

  2. What emotional and practical factors drive donor engagement?

  3. How can we leverage insights to create a personalized donor journey?

  4. What are the drop-off points in the donation flow?

Task

As the lead UX researcher, my responsibilities included:

  1. Identifying usability issues in the donation process.

  2. Understanding donor behavior, motivations, and emotional needs.

  3. Providing actionable recommendations to optimize the donor experience and improve retention rates.

  4. Assess mobile usability for key donor actions—donating, reading family updates, and managing sponsorships.

  5. Identify design pain points to improve engagement.

  6. Recommend design improvements to create an emotionally engaging mobile experience.

Action

I employed a rigorous, mixed-method research process to uncover insights and drive data-backed decisions.

Research Strategy

  • Combine a mixed-methods approach

  • Democratize research to product, design, engineering, customer success and product marketing

  • Understand donor frustrations & motivations (e.g., trust, emotional stories)

  • Review donation funnel (e.g., abandonment on lengthy forms).

  • Identify where users struggled or lost interest in user flow.

  • Highlight key moments where storytelling and trust-building were most effective

  • Validate usability improvements

  • Focus on mobile optimization, recognizing that many donors access the site on their phones

Tools Leveraged

Platform Analytics, Journeymaps, User Flows, Data Collection & Processing

  • Pendo

  • Google Forms

  • Mural

  • Figjam

  • Figma

  • Google Sheets

  • Redash

  • Dovetailapp

  • User Interviews

Donor Journeymap

Tracking the donor journey touchpoints from awareness to advocacy.

Donor User Flows

Tracking users flows involving donation process.

Interview Screener

Tracking users flows involving donation process.

Platform Analytics

Tracking users flows involving donation process.

Result

[ Key Insights ]

  • The donation form required too many steps, causing cognitive overload on smaller screens.

  • Family updates (photos and videos) were not optimized for mobile viewing, leading to slow load times and frustration.

  • Donors did not have account settings. They did not have any options to edit the settings associated with their account.

  • Key Deliverables

    Interactive Mobile Dashboard: Implemented recommendations for the build of a new responsive dashboard for donors to view family updates in a visual timeline and send quick, personalized messages back to their sponsored family.

  • New Usability Improvements

    Streamlined Mobile Donation Process:

    Simplified the donation flow to 3 intuitive steps.

  • Simplified Donation Process

    Added mobile-friendly design elements like larger buttons, auto-fill for payment details, reduced form fields, and added a persistent progress bar.

  • Built Trust Through Enhanced Storytelling

    Incorporated family success stories and real-world impact at key points in the user journey.

    Highlighted transparency about donation usage (e.g., "Your $10 provides X for Y").

Redesigned Donor Flow

New mobile app donor flow process

[ Measurable Success ]

Donation Platform

  • Increased completed donations by 35% within 3 months

  • Boosted in returning donor engagement by 20%

  • Improved user satisfaction metric, qualitative feedback

  • Increased donation completion rates by 45% on mobile devices

  • Reduced bounce rates on mobile donation pages by 30%

  • Increased engagement with a 60% increase in views and interactions

Mobile Improvements

  • Reduced bounce rates on mobile donation pages by 30%

  • Increased donation completion rates by 45% on mobile devices

  • Increased engagement with a 32% increase in views and interactions

Reflection

[ Takeaways ]

This project reinforced the power of combining user empathy and data-driven insights to solve real-world problems. By focusing on donor needs and motivations, we were able to create a platform that not only increased donations but also strengthened relationships between donors and the mission they support. The power of mobile accessibility and user-centered design in driving donor engagement. By applying research-driven recommendations—grounded in usability testing, interviews, journey mapping and data analytics—we transformed desktop and mobile frustration into a seamless, emotionally engaging experience that strengthened donor relationships.

User Testing Feedback

  • "The process feels so much easier and I feel more connected to the families I'm supporting."

    Participant #AX123A

  • "I really like the new dashboard. I trust where my money is going, this level of transparency gives me peace of mind."

    Participant #AX124A

  • "I love seeing the stories of the families’ progress."

    Participant #AX125A

  • "Oh, I really like being able to check status updates right in the dashboard."

    Participant #AX126A

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