St Vincent de Paul Society (SVP)
The St Vincent de Paul Society (SVP) turns concern into action by befriending over 80,000 lonely and isolated people each year in England and Wales, providing practical assistance to anyone in need.
“Our consultant reminded us how many wonderful stories we have to tell, and the value of putting them front and centre on the new website. IE Digital did an excellent job of improving the online user experience, and the new site is helping us to achieve our objectives of recruiting more volunteers, attracting more donations and helping more people.”
Ken Madine
Head of Fundraising, Communications and Marketing, St Vincent de Paul Society
Before we landed
Traditionally, SVP had kept a low profile in the UK, but they were now aiming to raise awareness of their work among Catholic communities and beyond. The website was dated and provided a poor user experience, particularly on mobiles.
The challenge we were set
To raise their profile as a befriending charity, SVP needed an attractive, informative and up to date new website. Its purpose is threefold: To allow people to learn what help is on offer, and request the support they need. To attract new volunteers and members. And to drive online donations.
The difference we made
IE’s consultants designed the user experience to help SVP achieve its main objectives, and their users to find what they need.
We gave pride of place to SVP’s many stories, to show the impact their work has had on their beneficiaries.
Donations were given due prominence. We added functionality to allow recurring donations and a choice of destination projects, integrating with PayPal’s donation system.
We extended SVP’s existing Drupal 7 build for the new site. The CMS allows SVP to create and organise content easily, and create microsites for a wide variety of programmes – from children’s camps and local community support projects, to youth programmes and overseas aid.
IE also supports SVP’s member management system in CiviCRM, which controls a secure area for their 10,000 members – and charity staff – to login and access resources.
