UNC Charlotte Foundation

What We Found

For a university, donations generated through the foundation department are a vital part of achieving the goals set in the institution's strategic plan. UNC Charlotte found itself embarking on a landmark year of achievement, but was utilizing an outdated and confusing website to promote the act of giving to the University.

What We Did

The first step was understanding the breadth and depth of giving options within the Foundation. Each department has a handful of priorities they were hoping to achieve through designated gifts to the University. Success stories speaking to how financial contributions helped changed people's lives were abundant. The trouble? This compelling information didn't have a presence online and therefore did little to motivate and inspire others to give. As VisionPoint began the information architecture process, we incorporated what we learned from the strategy phase and created a site structure playing on the Foundation's strengths.  A visual design was applied that elevated the brand even further. Finally, the site was developed on Drupal, the University's content management system of choice.

The university already had an application to accept and process payments. Unfortunately, it relied heavily on several third-party vendors that did not talk to each other. In addition to being user-unfriendly, the application was a poor representation of the Foundation. In response, VisionPoint created a more robust giving application,  integrating each third-party vendor, and including an administrative backend enabling on-campus users to review reports about the donations the university receives.