Jilly Cross, founder of Bravand

Hackney based digital design and build agency Bravand is pioneering digital transformation in the charity sector with the November launch of its new website for baby bank charity Little Village.

Little Village has seen demand double in 2020 and is on track to support 6,000 children this year. The London based charity supports families with children aged up to 5 from across London with clothes, toys and equipment. Families have to be referred to Little Village from a food bank, health visitor or other professional/voluntary organisation.

The Duchess of Cambridge is behind the UK campaign to encourage companies to donate items to baby banks around the UK, including Little Village, and spoke to two of the families supported by Little Village in August via video call. Little Village also receive donations from individuals in the form of goods, as well monetary donations and volunteering.

Prior to creating the new site, Bravand created user journeys for key stakeholders based around what each stakeholder needed to achieve from the website, including financial donors and donors of goods, corporates offering financial support or goods, professionals such as health visitors, volunteers and fundraisers and families.

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“User centric processes will enable the charity to adapt in the coronavirus era,” said founder of Bravand Jilly Cross. “As well as the increased demand for services, many of the centres are unable to open physically, which is changing the charity into a digital first organisation. Little Village needed a site that could handle this change.

“One of the issues faced by the charity is the type of physical donations they can receive, in terms of what they can store and what they are able to then pass on to families in need. Through the website development, we have been able to add friction and guide potential donors through the process. By making it really clear what can be donated, when and where, we have also been able to remove unnecessary human processes, saving the charity vital time.”

Chief executive and founder of Little Village Sophia Parker said the user centricity of the new website will save the charity many hours per year in answering questions about donations alone:

“We are thrilled that Jilly and her team have developed our new user-centric website. Jilly really listened to our brief, guiding and advising us along the development process. The site now looks and feels much more fresh, relevant and accessible. We believe that families, volunteers and donors using our site will enjoy an enhanced user journey, in turn saving us time and helping us to deliver on our mission of making it as easy as possible for families to help one another when times are tough.”

The first campaign to feature on Little Village’s new website is its Christmas campaign as the charity seeks to provide gifts for 1000 young children and babies across London. People can buy gift vouchers from £5 to £100 to help a family give their child a gift that really matters to them this Christmas.

Bravand position themselves as ‘digital problem solvers’ and have worked alongside brands such as charity broadcast company EachOther and mental health support network Togetherall on user experience projects, user design, strategy, digital design and development. Jilly Cross says there is more charities can do to embrace user experience on their websites:

“Most charities, even large charities, focus on monetary donations. They build a new site and they judge its success on the return on investment through fundraising alone. But it’s not just about funds raised. Charities need to look at things more holistically, and consider the needs of various stakeholders using their site to make it really simple for them to do what they need to do. Time saved by a charity impacts on its overall effectiveness and financial performance in the same way that fundraising does.

“By using technology as a facilitator for digital transformation, we can create better charity websites that simplify the big problems that they are facing.”

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