Mines Advisory Group (MAG) needed a new site that would present it as a modern, innovative and professional international development charity. We were approached by Cherry Tiger, the charity’s incumbent advertising and branding agency, to support in the build and bring the charity’s vision to life.
We worked together to develop a platform that brought human stories to the forefront and showcased the impact of both the mine crisis and the work that MAG carries out. Cherry Tiger supported us throughout the project on any branding requirements.
MAG’s previous site was cluttered and the structure had become unwieldy. To focus on users’ needs, we conducted a number of user journey mapping workshops to establish who their audience is, the channels they use and the desired actions MAG wanted them to take on the site.
We developed a simple drop down menu system that answers the most common questions from MAG’s audience: who are you? What do you do? How can I help? What’s new? Combining this with a strong visual and interactive design makes the site easy to use and helps the charity to fulfil its objectives.
A key deliverable was to develop an Americanised version of the website. Our platform detects North American visitors via their IP and redirects them to a smaller website that features a US donations journey and content/campaigns specific to the region.
With a backlog of impactful assets from on the ground in areas impacted by mines, MAG was keen to incorporate personal stories into the user experience to guide users’ journeys throughout the site. We developed the platform with integrated imagery and video throughout the pages; starting at the very top. The banner on the homepage was designed so that MAG could alternate campaign videos depending on their focus at the time. By doing this, we hope to encourage users to empathise with the charity’s beneficiaries and therefore engage with the charity through donations and support.
As part of the Django CMS development, we included a number of enterprise-level integrations such as Raiser’s Edge, Mailchimp, and goDonate. goDonate was integrated to help the charity drive donations with a seamless user experience. It also provides the team with detailed donation analytics such as tracking, purchase funnel and abandoned cart.
The solution we provided is fully responsive with simple and secure administrative functions for MAG’s digital team. We also enabled various permission levels so the charity can set access and passwords depending on department.
The scalability of our solution enabled us to quickly develop the Nigeria petition campaign to urgently address the crisis with Kate Osamor, the Chair of the UK's Parliamentary Group for Nigeria. The campaign captures user registrations and integrates with Mailchimp so regular email reminders can be shared. The charity received 2,179 sign ups in a very short space of time, which was presented in Government.
Following launch, the main UK website has seen a rise in interaction and donations which contributes to MAG’s objectives to create awareness, generate increased fundraising and raise the profile of humanitarian mine action issues and possible solutions.
MAG saw a 31% increase in users, 27% increase in sessions and a huge 49% increase in new users. This level of new users has been extremely valuable with bounce rate also being lowered and the rate of donation conversion rising. These interactions are continually being measured and improved.
The overall project was delivered both on time and within budget with the addition of two pro-bono campaign pages to the project. MAG’s digital team referred to our working relationship as supportive, positive and impactful with a 10/10 rating for both the project and ongoing support. We endeavour to maintain a long-term relationship with every one of our clients and are already planning MAG’s digital roadmap which includes its 30th anniversary, its Angola and Vietnam programme’s 25 year anniversary and phase 2 of the website development.
MAG removed and destroyed 100k landmines and unexploded bombs in 2018
Increase in income from public donations, appeals and fundraising events in the year the new site launched (2018)
Regular giving reached 194k in 2019
Robin Toal, Digital Coordinator at
Mines Advisory Group
