Helping economically-impacted communities in the USA thrive.
Role: Brand Strategist & UX Architect
Skills: Brand strategy, UX strategy, information architecture, UX design
Team: 2 Creative Directors, 1 Strategy Director, 1 Project Manager, 1 UX Designer, 3 Developers
Agency: Briteweb
Website: Neighborhood Funders Group
In collaboration with Briteweb’s team of strategists and creatives, I helped Neighborhood Funders Group tap into UX design opportunities to increase new memberships by conducting stakeholder interviews, reviewing their analytics, and offering design inspiration from similar peers in their market space.
NFG came to Briteweb in late 2021 with a few goals: to better improve the user experience on their website, grow their membership, and spread the word of their mission of alleviating economic inequality far and wide. Their main business problems were attracting new members and clearly communicating their mission as an organization to those who were not familiar with their work.
The old NFG website was outdated, cluttered, and difficult to navigate. Members were having trouble finding the resources they needed, and the website was not meeting the organization's goals of promoting collaboration and sharing knowledge. This was resulting in lower engagement and fewer member sign-ups.
The new NFG: Inspiring, community-driven, and place-based.
We conducted a competitive analysis of other non-profit and membership association websites to identify best practices and areas for improvement. After analyzing the North American landscape and similar peer organizations, we concluded that there were significant opportunities for NFG to lean into 3 key differentiators.
Additionally, we analyzed website analytics to better identify user behaviour patterns and pain points as well as conducted user interviews to gather feedback. The website was redesigned to be responsive and accessible on all devices, including desktop, tablet, and mobile. We conducted user testing sessions to gather feedback on the usability of the redesigned website and made iterative improvements based on user feedback.
The redesign resulted in significant improvements in user engagement and member sign-ups: the organization saw a 30% increase in overall membership sign-ups and a 40% increase in membership renewals. User feedback was also positive, with members noting that the website was more visually appealing, easier to navigate, and more informative.
Our digital strategy: clarify their mission on the homepage to attract grant-makers aligned to their mission, make their program offerings clear for existing members to self-select in, and share their news and thought leadership with the public. It was our belief that building a sense of clarity and aspiration within their brand messaging and user experience would enable meaningful membership activation into their organization for the long-term.
The new site design not only increased grant-maker signups, but also made their mission clearer, increased community engagement via their content, and added significant credibility to their name in the US philanthropy space with the addition of their public membership roster.
Aspiring towards our shared humanity and shining a light on diverse voices was our overall strategy to answer the question of why join NFG.
