Habitat for Humanity Southern Alberta
Challenge
Constructing an Online Home for Habitat Fund development and communications upgraded. Habitat for Humanity Southern Alberta is a non-profit organization that builds strength, stability, and independence for families through affordable home ownership. Habitat for Humanity ReStores are home improvement outlets that accept and resell quality new and used building materials, furniture, appliances and more in order to generate funds for local Habitat for Humanity Southern Alberta’s homebuilding projects. Goals and Objectives Embody the Habitat for Humanity’s International Brand Standards in order to put the focus on the benefits that Habitat offers to families here in Southern Alberta Increase donations (individual donations, donations to events, corporate sponsorships, partnerships, etc) Create a stronger connection between Habitat Southern Alberta, Habitat community offices and ReStore Habitat for Humanity Southern Alberta’s internal team worked closely with us to launch a new website delivering on these goals in January 2017.
Solution
Embody the Brand Kayak used the brand standards for print communications developed for Habitat for Humanity International to update both the look and messaging on both the Habitat and ReStore sites. Images of the families became central to the design, and typography was also used to unite the website experience with other printed materials being produced for Habitat. As a brand, Habitat is moving away from build-focused messaging so that the public can understand that builds are what Habitat does, but families are why they do it. The clean and modern design of the new Habitat For Humanity Southern Alberta website is mirrored in the new ReStore website to visually connect the two websites and illustrate how they work together. Increase Donations While Habitat is one of the most recognized brands in the world, it isn’t one of the most supported. Habitat came to Kayak looking for a way to increase donations — including individual donations, donations to events, and corporate sponsorships. Kayak used the brand guidelines to understand who would be open to supporting Habitat and what they’d need to know in order to make their decision. New website content was created and existing website content was reorganized in order to move visitors through a more focussed educational process about the work that Habitat does in Southern Alberta and the impact it has on the community. HubSpot was chosen as the web marketing platform for this site because it allows for a more consistent marketing approach, simpler updates and significantly better data management. WordPress was chosen for the ReStore site with a plan for adding ecommerce functionality in the future. Create Connections Habitat as an organization has so many different touch points in the community that it is often hard for the public to understand the impact they have on a large scale in Southern Alberta. Chapters and ReStore are often the only experience people have with the organization - but understanding the scope of what the larger Southern Alberta section is trying to accomplish is important to positively impacting donations and making Habitat a preferred option for personal and corporate giving. Using link strategy and strategic page content creation, we are able to communicate the reach and impact Habitat is having in Southern Alberta. Chapter content is given more prominence when it is featured on the homepage or events pages of the Habitat website. ReStore’s greater purpose of funding builds and helping families is more clearly communicated. The separation between these levels of the organization have been removed in favour of a more holistic brand experience that is focused on helping families in Southern Alberta is apparent.
Results
Habitat’s local offices are able to create more consistent promotional materials for their events that can then be shared via the new website. The Habitat Southern Alberta marketing team has the right tools in place to attract more donors, volunteers and families. And they are beginning to use the blog to better promote fundraising and community involvement. Lastly, the Habitat sponsorship team has the tools they need to go after larger corporate donations and a platform to help them with lead nurturing potential partners.
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