Give Directly
Showing the power of donation
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Give Directly is a philanthropic organization that collects money from donors and sends it directly to people living in extreme poverty in Africa.
Many donors wanted to see how their donation was being utilized by those in need. Give Directly was collecting data on how this money was being used but had no way to share it.
Give Directly and Pivotal teamed up to create a live feed of the recipient data as it was recorded by staff in the field. This feed provides a minute by minute look at who is receiving the donations and how they used the money to better their lives.
Give Directly didn't have an internal design/engineering team of their own so I came on-board as the lead product designer. Working alongside GD staff and the Pivotal Engineering team, I conducted stakeholder/donor interviews, rapidly prototyped display options for recipient data, and paired with engineers to build out the production UI.
One of the main challenges of the project was deciding which information to display in the live feed as it was being uploaded from the field. By interviewing stakeholders and donors, we decided that the main objective was to provide a face for each story by displaying an individual or family photo in the main feed. We also wanted to show how rapidly the funds were being dispersed so we made sure to include how long ago each recipient received their money.
In addition to the main feed of recipients, we also wanted to focus on individual stories. Each recipient's profile was centered around a timeline. To gauge the effectiveness of the program, the participants were asked questions before and after receiving the money. A narrative was created from the answers, giving donors a look at how their donations were being used.
