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Making Giving to Charity Easy

Supporting a charity with new website and video

The Brief

The Cathedral Archer Project is a local charity in Sheffield where homeless and vulnerable people are given support to help change their lives for the better. We work closely with the Archer Project at Hydra Creative (see their website), supporting their breakfast club and other fundraising efforts throughout the year

The new website was important to the charity as they needed to create awareness of the charity and the services that they offer. They needed to maximise donations of both monetary value and items that the homeless are in desperate need of.

Many of the Archer Project’s supporters access information about the charity via mobile phones and tablet devices which made making the new website responsive via these devices a crucial element of the brief. The main objective of developing the new website was to increase awareness of the charity, improve the user-journey and encourage website users to donate.

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Website Requirements

A clear user journey was high on the list of requirements for the new website. The design needed to easily adapt for mobile and tablet devices as a lot of the target users use mobile phones and tablets to access information.

As the main objective was to encourage users to donate via the website, there needed to be lots of clear and prominent calls to action to encourage people to donate to the charity. The website needed to be eye-catching and friendly for users, yet also reflect the ethics of the charity and what they are trying to achieve.

Key requirements of the website were for it to be completely responsive on mobile and tablet devices, to ensure that the content is prioritised and enables users to quickly donate or to get in touch. The CMS needed to be easy and quick to update, with the latest news stories, events and blog articles.

An events calendar was another crucial requirement for the website, as supporters and users who are interested in becoming supporters will turn to the calendar when they want to get involved with fundraising events.

The Solution

We created a user-friendly design with icons on the key calls to actions. When the website is viewed on mobile devices the icons are easily clickable, enhancing the overall user experience and encouraging users to take action.

The website design is friendly and simple to navigate. The eye-catching design invites users to explore the site and learn more about the project.

The strong imagery and bright colours used within the site reflect the efforts of the Archer Project to be inclusive and positive, as well as clearly explain the services that they provide to homeless and vulnerable adults.

We built a bespoke CMS to enable the admin of the Archer Project to easily manage and update the content on the website, manage their own SEO and add new blog posts/news stories.

As well as monetary donations, the Archer Project are always looking for physical items that are essential for their clients, such as warm clothing and food. To assist in this, we integrated a live weather update and a list of things most in demand, according to the weather. This list updates when the weather changes, e.g. when it is raining the list will ask for rain coats, umbrellas, sleeping bags etc. This function enables the users to get more involved with the website and the charity.

Success

Within a few weeks of the new website launch, the Archer Project received a large lump sum donation from a local business. The charity was informed by the business that they had chosen them to donate to, as they loved the website, and found it very easy to find out enough information to encourage them to donate to them, rather than to an alternative Sheffield charity that they were also considering.

The Archer Project have seen a substantial increase in volunteers and donations through the website since the launch of their new website, and we continue to work with them to develop the website as an ongoing concern.

Fundraising Dinner

Not only did we create a new website for the charity, but we also held a fundraising dinner at Sparks Restaurant at The Sheffield City College, inviting some of Sheffield’s most prominent businesses to attend. Along with a fabulous six course dinner, we also held a silent auction and raffle, as well as arranging for dinner guests to bring along donations of clothes, sleeping bags and blankets that the project could give out to those who need them.

We were delighted to raise over £2,000 for the Cathedral Archer Project as well as a huge amount of physical donations – it was a great success. We created this video as a reminder of the evening, and to promote the fantastic work that the Archer Project do every day.