Cultivating New Donors

In this scenario-based eLearning experience, non-profit fundraising staff test their effectiveness in cultivating new donors to boost funding and engagement. Through the use of real-world scenarios, participants will be guided through strategies and practices aimed at expanding donor networks.

Audience: Non-profit fundraising staff

Responsibilities: Instructional Design, eLearning Development, Action Map, Visual Design, Storyboard, and Mockups

Tools Used: Articulate Storyline 360, Vyond, Figma, Canva, Adobe Illustrator, MindMeister, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Audacity, Amazon Simple Storage Service (AWS, Amazon S3)

Experience the Project

The Problem

My client was the Director of Fundraising for a non profit organization. The organization is having trouble getting fundraising staff to engage with donors in a positive and meaningful way. Fundraising staff do not effectively assess donors' financial capacity and willingness to contribute. In turn, they are asking for donations that are way too high or low. The staff is also not crafting compelling proposals with clear monetary targets, defined timelines, and purpose-driven narratives. Because of this, donor engagement and donations to the organization have plummeted.

The Solution

I recommended a scenario-based eLearning simulation that takes our fundraising staff on a journey using dynamic animated videos created in Vyond. Learners are able to practice in a risk-free zone and see the real life consequences of their choices.

Experience the Project

My Process

After working with the client to determine the biggest challenges, we created learning objectives that served as the blueprint for the project creation. This was followed by a text-based storyboard, which underwent many iterations. I then created visual mockups, including a moodboard, style guide, and wireframes. This was followed by more feedback and lots of iteration.

Learning Objectives

Text-based Storyboard

I worked with the director of fundraising to create learning objectives and identify the high-priority behaviors changes. The main goals are to help the fundraising staff

Maintain donor engagement throughout conversations
Utilize questioning strategies to effectively assess donors' financial capacity and willingness to contribute.
Execute successful gift solicitations by crafting compelling proposals with clear monetary targets, defined timelines, and purpose-driven narratives.

Next, I created a text-based storyboard based on the learning objectives. The storyboard served as the blueprint for the entire project. It helped guide me through creating an immersive story, from setting up the first donor meeting to assessing donors' financial capacity and the final gift solicitation. The experience is elevated with the addition of animated videos throughout (Vyond), setting the stage for major story points. Our learners receive help from Tara, who is our fundraising mentor character. Each question has a “Tara’s Take” page if the learner is struggling to find the correct answer.

Visual Mockups

I crafted a style guide to ensure uniformity of color, font, and spacing across the project and iterated on wireframes to refine the layout of each type of slide (mentor Tara’s Take, question, consequence)

Interactive Prototype

I planned my slides in Figma and then created an interactive prototype in Articulate Storyline 360 to get feedback on functionality as well as the look and feel. My prototype included a question, mentor slide (Tara’s Take), and a consequence slide. I requested and received feedback from the SME on the prototype and ran quality assurance checks. Project issues included button fonts not matching, videos needing a transparent shape overlay to prevent learners from pausing the timeline, and two Vyond videos being too short. After many iterations, I moved on to the full development.

Full Development

After incorporating feedback from the client and subject matter experts (SMEs), I commenced full development. During this stage, I further edited the Vyond videos to better align with the project's requirements and added an additional video to enhance storytelling.

Results and Takeaways

I loved creating this project and working with Vyond! This project has helped fundraising staff increase new donor engagement by allowing them to practice in a risk-free zone and make mistakes. We have already seen behavior changes regarding the project's main pain points, including maintaining donor engagement throughout conversations, utilizing questioning strategies to effectively assess donors' financial capacity and willingness to contribute, and executing successful gift solicitations by crafting compelling proposals with clear monetary targets, defined timelines, and purpose-driven narratives.

Experience the Project

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