CARERS FIRST CASE STUDY
Getting quick results using design sprints
CAST YOUR MIND BACK
Cast your mind back to November 2020 – it’s the middle of lockdown two of the global pandemic and Carers First needed to diversify their income through delivering their first ever public fundraising campaign. With a small in-house team and a 5-day design sprint, they got started aiming to go live in time for Christmas. They needed results in real-time in order to deliver campaign success.
In just 21 days the team delivered a complete, integrated social media campaign and generated a brand new revenue stream for the charity. The sense of empowerment and pride within the team was clear, and this fresh way of working is now being adopted across Carers First.
A set of firsts for Carers First
Direct online fundraising
Carers First is primarily contract funded, so were new to public fundraising. They had little understanding of their audience, especially online.
Working as a multi-functional team
Historically they have worked as independent, siloed teams presenting ideas to stakeholders for buy-in.
Running design sprints
With limited time and budget they needed to generate an idea and test it quickly reducing any wasted time, effort and vital funds.
With limited time and budget they needed to generate an idea and test it quickly reducing any wasted time, effort and vital funds.
Andy Watts
DIRECTOR OF INCOME AND COMMUNICATIONS
FIVE STEPS OF THE DESIGN SPRINT (IN JUST 21 DAYS)
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
Build a
Generate
Build the
Launch
Reflect
team
ideas
campaign
it
together
1. First, they gathered a mix of people
#1
Build a multi
functional team
Breaking down silos enabled total collaboration
By gathering a mixture of fundraisers, carers, services and communications team members, Carers First quickly built a multi-functional team, each member bringing their own skill set, experience and perspective. The team had complete autonomy which enabled them to deliver the campaign from concept to launch without any external support or lengthy senior stakeholder sign off.
“This helped to break down silos and enabled genuine collaboration. We had a great team and it worked really well. In fact the team got on so well, they’ve all remained great friends. We learned a lot in a very short space of time by rolling up our sleeves and working together”. (Andy Watts).
2. Then, they generated lots of ideas
#2
Generate ideas
Combined experiences and a shared goal
Working together over a 5-day Design Sprint, the team developed a clear, shared objective and then generated their ideas. They quickly prioritised the idea of building and testing their first ever online campaign video to achieve their objective. Using their combined experience and skills, they problem solved how to build a campaign video in a very short space of time. They then tested their idea before agreeing to move forwards with it.
“We now see what is possible when we work together with a clear and shared objective; even in just a very short space of time. It has given us a huge amount of confidence to work in this way moving forwards. It has broadened our horizons.” (Andy Watts)
This is such a great way of working. It allows you to get more from people; more ideas.
Andy Watts
DIRECTOR OF INCOME AND COMMUNICATIONS
3. Created the campaign and tested their assumptions
#3
Build campaign
Not being attached to a particular outcome enabled us to work in a really agile way
At the end of the 5-day design sprint, the team began making the campaign video itself. This is where the team came into their own, overcoming daily challenges of a National lockdown with creativity and tenacity. All the filming for the video took place over Zoom, from art direction to practicing scripts.
Throughout the process the team continued to test the video with their audience, to make sure it was going to deliver maximum impact. Testing, learning and refining a little more each time. Everyone knew exactly what they were doing each day and after 21 days Carers First were able to launch something they were really proud of.
“By not being attached to a particular outcome, we were able to learn more about ourselves, each other and our audience, whilst up-skilling ourselves to work in an agile way from now on.” (Andy Watts).
We were able to test our assumptions that the campaign video would resonate with our audiences, before we launched it which gave us great confidence.
Andy Watts
DIRECTOR OF INCOME AND COMMUNICATIONS
4. Testing gave them confidence to launch
#4
Launch
campaign
A new revenue stream to meet supporters changing behaviours
This was the first time Carers First had launched a direct public fundraising campaign through social media. They achieved an organic reach of 6,300 people across Facebook, generating £485 in fundraising.
Most importantly, it has served as a test bed for this type of direct audience fundraising for Carers First – a totally new channel to diversify the charities income. They now have brand new insights into whether and how this type of fundraising could work best for them today and in the future.
“We live in a world that is constantly evolving. And as a charity we must continue to evolve and adapt to the changing needs and behaviours of our supporters, so we can continue to diversify our income and generate the vital funds needed to keep Carers First going.” (Andy Watts).
5. Regular reflection enabled them to adapt
#5
Reflect together
An ongoing cycle of discovery
Through regular reflection the team were able to identify ways in which they could increase future engagement through direct fundraising. The biggest insight gathered was identifying the need to build awareness of Carers First as an organisation in need of donations.
“We learnt that there is more work to do in our fundraising approach, our key messaging and our website” (Andy Watts). This is now underway (Carers First have a refreshed brand and new website) and the team continue to use their newfound insights and confidence to run their workflow using agile principles.
“This really is the ‘Age of Agile’ and we’re so glad we switched to agile ways of working when we did. We could never have delivered this campaign in 21 days without it”! (Andy Watts).
The more I step back and reflect on it, the more I see how these experiments have developed fresh thinking and ways of working across the entire organisation.
