Fleece & Thank You
Fleece & Thank You is a Farmington Hills based non-profit organization whose mission is to provide comfort to 30,000 kids in the hospital. Since 2015, they've been delivering colorful fleece blankets with video messages of support attached to hospitals throughout Michigan and the United States.
The Problem
Fleece & Thank You has been firing on all cylinders, growing their following, increasing their impact and attracting more support. Our challenge was to explore the different ways we could highlight that impact while helping supporters get to the right place quicker.
The primary organizational needs we defined were:
- Improve visitors’ understanding and awareness of the various way to get involved with Fleece & Thank You
- Increase sales of their flagship donation product, the Blanket Kit
Our Solution
We re-designed the current Fleece & Thank You website to be a workhorse for the organization. Emotive imagery, videos and bright colors convey the energy behind FTY while also leading visitors to the content they seek.
We took all existing instructional videos and PDFs and created a new Resources section filled with assets that were previously being sent out manually. We designed a series of page templates that enables us to quickly deploy new pages and sections as needs arise. We integrated custom checkout features to recover transaction fees, schedule pickup appointments for blanket kit sales, and included a shipping option to allow supporters to purchase return shipping labels.
Cam led us through Discovery to explore what we wanted our new website to accomplish. This included look and feel and UI/UX implementation. The "Gut Test" workshop was awesome and truly got us to narrow down key features that we wanted, and those we didn't know we needed.
I felt that Cam was always one step ahead, always offering up best practices, and never hesitated to ask questions. Cam is the definition of professionalism. He openly encouraged us to share ideas and had no problem voicing what he thought would work best.
What I Learned
This project was a huge learning experience for me. Structuring, organizing and laying-out the various content types was challenging at times. Fortunately, we committed to using a design system early on which really helped ensure visual consistency from page to page, section to section, while also allowing us to deploy new content and features quite rapidly and affordably.
The importance of Discovery
Discovery produced a sprawling list of ideas and layouts for the new website and set us up to have deep conversations about priorities, user needs and best practices. The FTY team really enjoyed the workshops and design exercises, which allowed them to express look-and-feel preferences in a way that was approachable and inclusive.
Collaboration is key
Creating an organization's website cannot be done in isolation. My client’s are the experts that make launching a successful website possible. The insight and ideas the FTY team brought to the table are what dream projects are made of.
It's pretty simple...
The world is a better place because of your work. Let me help you tell that story.