Redesigning Donation Flows for Crisis-Speed Giving

The Canadian Red Cross generates significant online donation traffic, particularly during time-sensitive disaster response. When a crisis hits — a wildfire, a flood, an international emergency — donation traffic spikes dramatically, and the majority of that surge comes from mobile. As donor behavior shifted to mobile and event-driven giving, the existing site — built in a pre-mobile era — couldn't support modern fundraising expectations. Donation flows weren't designed for urgency, campaign flexibility was limited, and the mobile experience was an afterthought.

The Problem

The site wasn't optimized for mobile or tablet users at a time when disaster-driven donation traffic was overwhelmingly mobile. Donation journeys had friction that suppressed completion rates during the moments that mattered most — crisis response surges where every hour of delay represents lost contributions. Content architecture didn't align with modern donor behavior, where people give in response to specific events and want to know their money is going to the cause they care about. There was no flexibility for disaster-specific calls to action, meaning every crisis required manual workarounds to create urgency in the experience.

The Approach

I led user testing and rapid prototyping to validate mobile fundraising concepts before committing to a full redesign direction. This was important given the organizational context — the Red Cross couldn't afford a redesign that didn't land, and testing early reduced that risk.

I then designed a fully responsive platform from the ground up. The donation flow was the centerpiece: redesigned to enable directed giving and highlight contribution impact within the experience – showing donors exactly where their money goes and what it supports. This wasn't just a UX improvement; it addressed a core fundraising psychology insight that donors give more when they can see the connection between their contribution and a specific outcome.

I built campaign-ready templates that could be deployed rapidly during crises, reducing the time from disaster declaration to live fundraising campaign. When a wildfire hits, the communications team shouldn't be waiting on a developer to build a landing page. I introduced search-based navigation for Programs and Services to help users find relevant information without scrolling through hierarchical menus, applied flexible grid layouts for scalability across content types, and used A/B testing throughout to validate decisions against baseline performance.

Impact

• Delivered a mobile-first fundraising experience for Canada's largest humanitarian organization

• Projected 20–30% improvement in mobile donation completion rates based on redesign benchmarks

• Created rapidly deployable campaign templates for disaster response — reducing campaign launch time from days to hours

• Validated design decisions through A/B testing, ensuring measurable improvement over baseline