Transforming Fundraising and Donor Loyalty

The Challenge

The European Association against Leukodystrophies (ELA) has relied heavily on fundraising from events, partnerships with schools, and sponsored campaigns. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically reduced these opportunities, presenting an urgent need to unify traditional donation channels, create a single digital entry point, and raise awareness. This critical challenge is being faced by associations and charities across the globe, which are now less able to support families and medical research. BCG Platinion analyzed this challenge and identified a solution that would transform the visitor experience through digital technology. The goal was to reach more donors in more innovative ways.

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The Approach

To strategically address this challenge, BCG Platinion devised a two-phase approach that included a multidisciplinary team comprised of IT architects, designers, and content strategists. With a structured plan in place, the project team began a thorough UX analysis of the existing digital donation journey.

Mapping the entire digital ecosystem enabled the team to identify the association’s critical pain points, across experiential, ergonomic, and social levels. During this phase, the specialized IT and architecture stream reviewed the existing CRM system. This dynamic approach rapidly revealed eight key quick-win actions for the association, enabling the BCG Platinion team to help redefine and enhance the client’s brand image throughout its ecosystem. BCG Platinion also explored new ways for the association to collect donations in schools, including a digital “pot” solution that enabled fundraising to be effectively organized.

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Implementing these quick wins required a proof of concept to be conducted to validate the feasibility of the technology assessment. Key actions were then prioritized in terms of their user value and shared among respective workstreams alongside a detailed project roadmap.

On a technical level, BCG Platinion implemented an architecture that would promote autonomy and enable the ELA tech team to maintain the new solution. We leveraged APIs and modular architecture to facilitate the use of on-shelf solutions and product-driven development and provided a roadmap of CRM integration and third-party database management.

As part of this project, critical web pages were also redesigned to create a more responsive environment, supporting better engagement and increased loyalty. Best practices were used to ensure that the user interface was easy to navigate, with seamless options for making digital donations. Fostering a Human Centred Design methodology, BCG Platinion teams worked closely with the association’s internal staff, providing training and guidance to promote adoption.

The result was the seamless delivery of an end-to-end solution, tailored to the requirements of the association and their visitors.

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The Impact

The consistent, harmonized donation funnel is intended to significantly enhance the user experience, which should achieve both an increase in overall fundraising and a higher donor retainment rate.

To support this target, low manual integration, low code strategy, APIs, and SaaS technology have been combined to help maximize real-time efficiency.

Using agile coaching methods, we supported the client team to take ownership of their product and to deploy their own agile ways of working.

This enabled them to conduct product management training, to nominate product owners, and to establish key objectives.

9 to 1 The streamlined digital ecosystem now requires just one entry point

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Looking Into the Future

By unlocking and implementing a range of quick wins, BCG Platinion has transformed the association’s fundraising capabilities.

Using Human Centred Design methodologies and strategically deployed technology, our client can now confidently pursue a range of new opportunities to help combat genetic disease.

BCG Platinion is excited to continue building on this dynamic and valuable relationship with ELA that has been established for more than eighteen years.

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