Case Study

United Way Southern Vancouver Island (UWSVI) is an instantly recognizable name among charitable organizations. Their work on social issues and emerging needs in the community is expertly managed by a small army of passionate volunteers, members, generous donors, caring businesses and community partners. 

Caorda was invited to submit a proposal to UWSVI and we immediately got to work asking questions and learning about the specific challenges that they wished to improve upon with a refreshed, new website.

The Challenge

UWSVI felt that there were a few barriers in their way in terms of communicating through their website. Firstly, the marketing team did not have sufficient access to the content on the website. Creating and updating the pages was an unnecessarily complex process due to an over-complicated custom WordPress theme which limited their ability to quickly share their success stories and articles. It was imperative that their marketing team have unfettered access to update their content in a timely manner.

Given the age of the site, the team also had learned a great deal more about their visitors and wanted to update the user experience, particularly on mobile phones. The ultimate goal was to improve the ability for visitors to make quick and easy donations. Additionally, the UWSVI team wished to alter the tone of the website and develop content with a more conversational and outward-themed tone which was inclusive and welcoming.

The Solution

Given the long-standing reputation of the United Way organization, our initial process was to completely audit the website’s content and traffic in order to develop a baseline to establish an inventory of high-value pages and articles. This feeds the SEO Website Transition process that protects traffic to website page that may change during the rebuild. This was an extensive process and involved a great deal of dialogue between Caorda and UWSVI in order to develop an updated site architecture, menu structure and sitemap. We also helped establish which types of content that their viewership were responding to and would remove or downplay certain media types in favour of those stories and pages that resonated with their visitors.

The entire website went through a complete redesign factoring in all of the information that we learned about their traffic and conversion goals. Extra emphasis was placed on providing very simple navigation to the most important areas of the website. Ultimately, it was the donation features that they needed, above all, to be the most prominent feature across the website.

The final product was a distinctively clean and concise design which initially directed visitors’ attention to bright and bold donation buttons. The focal content exemplified the UWSVI’s tireless work in the community and, most importantly, allowed the content team to add, update and modify any piece of content that they wished to. In the end, the team just wanted to share their stories quickly and easily. This led to increased interest in the human element and to increased donations and traffic.

The Rebrand & Toolkit

After the original website project was finished and launched, the UWSVI team contacted us in need of a rebrand. When the website was first completed, United Way Greater Victoria (UWGV) was the official name, but after some time there was a decision to change it to United Way South Vancouver Island to include other communities outside of Victoria. Our design team got right to it, creating an updated logo to reflect the new name. From there, the logo and name was updated throughout the website in a timely manner. 

Along with the rebrand UWSVI was looking for a new feature on their website that could support workplace donation campaigns and make it easier for people to get involved. Our development team created a Campaign Toolkit for UWSVI, which acts the hub for donation campaigns. Here, donators can find everything they need in one place, including a campaign guide, the collection of forms they may need, information sheets, email templates, stories, activity and event ideas, and so much more.