Desktop and Mobile platform

Connecting nonprofits with people in need

Problem

The concept of a nonprofit search platform sparked as its founder Stephanie noticed that while you can just google search a pair of shoes and get hundreds (if not thousands) of search results, it wasn’t as easy to look for a community shelter, or a place to go when looking for help with substance abuse. How could a search platform connect people in need and redirect them to the place that would be fit to help them?

Approach

We started by researching similar flows of different products in which a person could search for keywords, filter results, save searches, create alerts, and so on. These included: hotel/apartment booking pages, job listings, restaurant reviews, and platforms that allowed to toggle between list and map view.

Since our target audience (people in need) have limited access to a desktop or laptop computer, we immediately identified that it was really likely that they would access the website through a mobile device. This is why we started with a mobile-first approach.

We mapped the site to identify the list of pages and information that each one would need, as well as the user flows for each user persona we had already identified (All users, Admin User, and Nonprofits)

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Sitemap ideation

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User flows

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Before jumping into high-fidelity mockups, we validated our flows with low-res wireframes and presented them to the board of trustees. After confirming some hypotheses and identifying some gaps that we tackled next, we were ready to move on to creating our design system and component library.

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Solution

The idea of connecting people in need with the organizations that could provide that help and offer their services materialized by envisioning a search platform specifically tailored for browsing a directory of nonprofit pages that included the organization’s location, mission and vision, opening hours, services offered, and contact information.

Key features

  • An Authentication flow, to create account, sign in, and recover password.
  • The Search Experience, including the whole process of searching for keywords, search results, filtering, saving nonprofit pages, and map view.
  • An Organization Page, seen as the “landing page” of the nonprofits listed on our platform, that provided all the necessary information for a person to be able to approach them.
  • An Account Management section, where users could manage their information, as well as their saved pages and alerts.
  • An Organization Page Management, where nonprofit teams can manage and update the organizations information.
  • A set of Static Pages, such as a Donate section, About Us, Contact, FAQs, and others.

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Building community through technology

Giving Connection was born with the vision to build a world where finding help and serving others is easy.

Results

  • Successfully launched the first platform iteration (currently working on Phase 2!)
  • Implemented a website compliant with accessibility standards.
  • Onboarded more than 50+ organizations to the site, ready to be found by people in need.

You can browse the site on givingconnection.org

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GABRIELA PINEDA