Birchbark Foundation: redesign + online donation integration

The Problem

BirchBark Foundation was in desperate need of a new website. First and foremost, they needed a site that was easy for the end user to navigate. The inability of visitors to navigate the organization's website was detrimental to operations in two very crucial ways.

The first being, that there was no online intake form. Those who were in need of the organization's assistance were forced to call rather than enter their information for quick and simple review on the other end.

It was also slow to load and hard for people to make online donations. They had a donation platform that was taking a large chunk of the original donation for various fees. They also needed it to be simple enough for organizational staff and volunteers to be able to maintain the site over time without a lot of outside assistance.

The former site was set up in Drupal and staff and volunteers had to pay someone every time a change needed to be made. It was static and aesthetically unpleasing. 

Main areas of concern:

• Donation platform – needed a new + functional integration
• Visual design – the site was unattractive and outdated aesthetically
• Poor site navigation – with so many pages, it was hard to find anything
• Broken application process – pet owners were having trouble applying for support

The Process

Getting the plan laid out

I transferred all the existing data from their current (past) site, and migrated it to Squarespace. They wanted to use Squarespace so they could manage the site on their own with ease once set-up.

Collaborating with the Executive Director, we outlined together what the new navigational structure should be – she told me which pages were most important, and I proposed what I thought would be most effective from a user's perspective.

The next main item was figuring out the best online donation software. After researching some options, I proposed using Moonclerk, which would sync well with Stripe. 

In terms of visuals, the ED let me have creative license, I just had to work within their existing brand color scheme. 

Putting the pieces together

With all the elements ready to go, I set out designing and implementing. With regular progress check-ins and critiques along the way, the website was finished in just under two months. 

Success!

On "Giving Tuesday," just days after the new site launched,  donations topped any other day of website donations. 

Simple and straight forward donations

A  more intuitive navigational structure

The Full Homepage

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