Diary Study
Working with a global nonprofit organization dedicated to ending hunger and poverty, this project was initiated to explore donation choices made by donors on Giving Tuesday. For many nonprofit organizations, Giving Tuesday is one of their biggest donation days of the year. The goal of this study was to gain insights into the factors influencing donor decision-making around the Giving Tuesday period and uncover the opportunities and challenges associated with this process.
Methodology
I conducted a diary study using dscout to gain a deeper understanding of the donor journey and the decision-making process behind charitable donations leading up to and on Giving Tuesday. By engaging donors in documenting their experiences over the American Thanksgiving period, I aimed to capture real-time insights and gather comprehensive data on the opportunities and challenges donors encountered throughout their journey.
The diary study provided a unique opportunity to collect rich and detailed information directly from donors themselves. Participants were asked to record their thoughts, emotions, and actions leading up to Giving Tuesday — from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, to Giving Tuesday.
This method enabled me to go beyond surface-level feedback and delve into the intricacies of the donor journey during this period. By examining the decision-making process in its natural context, I identified key moments of engagement, potential pain points, and areas where interventions or improvements could be made.
Deliverables
From this study, I developed a journey map that captured the various stages, touch points, and emotions experienced by donors leading up to Giving Tuesday. This comprehensive journey map visually represented the donor experience, revealing specific areas of opportunity to increase donations and barriers that hindered donations.
Additionally, I identified key mental models surrounding Giving Tuesday and provided recommendations on designing experiences that align with these models. To further enhance the donor experience, I created wireframes as a blueprint for potential experiences. These wireframes integrated the insights from the journey map and catered to the identified mental models, resulting in a more optimized donor engagement.
Together, the journey map and wireframes provided a holistic understanding of the donor experience, offering practical recommendations to maximize donor engagement and contributions.