Send Hope

We partnered with Send Hope to help them get their message out and cut administrative costs, so they could focus on their vision.

About Send Hope

Send Hope is an international outreach based out of Boise, Idaho. They extend HIV and leprosy care, education for at-risk children, disaster relief, and take on many special projects in several developing nations. It was really exciting for us to be able to work with an organization with such a great vision.

Learn more about their cause at sendhopenow.org.

 

The Challenge

We had a mission to improve site usability and streamline the donations process to help Send Hope further their mission.

Send Hope needed to address a fractured system that required a level of manual administration that prohibited scaling their effectiveness. With a limited administrative staff, they really needed a system that worked for them. They needed a system that could handle a high-level of automation and recurring donation options while also remaining simple from an administrative standpoint for ease of updating.

They also suffered from a lack of accessibility when it came to navigation from mobile devices and a donations process that was cumbersome, leading to users to abandon the process before it was complete. We helped to improve their donor interface, to help cut down on call volume to their support staff.

The Strategy

Send Hope reached out to several different firms. One proposed an amount that was outside of their budget, and the firm didn’t even sound confident that they could complete the project according to specs. ClikFocus was the only firm who provided a clear plan of action. Once partnered, we:

  • Built a custom, automated donation system according to specifications that met their needs. This included a notification system to let donors know when their payments were going to be deducted and also when payments failed with a direct link to their payment settings to allow them to update their information. It also supports eCheck payment options in checkout for recurring donations.
  • Improved the interface for their current donors. This has helped to cut down on support requests by making it easier for their donors to manage their own donations.
  • Donors have a clearer picture of their recurring donations due to an improved “Sponsorship Center” which displays the information about each of their sponsorships at a glance.
  • Designed a cleaner, responsive site that allows users to easily navigate on whatever device they use.
  • Launched the site before the crucial December donation period when they get the most, and largest, donations of the year. (Timing is everything!)
  • Added reports for the Send Hope team so they could reach out to sponsors who were behind on their commitment. This was especially valuable for their donors who pay manually by check. In the past they had been flying blind and hadn't had access to valuable retention information.

The Results

  • Donors have a clearer picture of their recurring donations due to an improved “Sponsorship Center” which displays the information about each of their sponsorships at a glance.
  • Staff have the ability to quickly update all information on a sponsorship from one location.
  • Staff can setup a future donation using the system so they can catch new donors without delay.
  • The onboarding process is more automated to alleviate the need for staff to contact donors manually. Welcome letters are sent to new sponsors automatically letting them know they can expect a more detailed packet by mail.
  • Donors can now use eChecks for direct bank donations. This brings down the cost per transaction for Send Hope to a fixed, per-transaction charge instead of a percentage. This has reduced their operating cost.

Capabilities Utilized

  • E-Commerce System
  • Recurring Donation System
  • Mobile Optimized Site 
  • Business Automation