Ration Challenge
We created the full user experience for Act for Peace’s Ration Challenge in 2019, across both print and digital (website and fundraising platform).
The challenge
Act for Peace asked for our support in rolling out their flagship fundraiser Ration Challenge again, this time to the UK and the USA, as well as helping to maintain its strong presence in Australia and New Zealand.
As in 2018, the project included a long list of deliverables: campaign microsites for all four territories; a single-page site for the top level domain (rationchallenge.org); themed and customised peer-to-peer fundraising platforms for each territory; full integration services with their CRM (Salesforce); a mobile app for the Australian campaign; plus a full set of participant resources including a printed guide, recipe booklet and a range of downloadable resources.
We were also asked to produce web pages, a registration process, customised peer-to-peer fundraising pages and various printed/printable materials to support the second year of the schools campaign in Australia, following the successful pilot in 2018.
Our approach
Much of the core platform for Ration Challenge was already in place, having worked on the project with Act for Peace in 2018. We kicked off this year’s campaign with discussions focused on how best to facilitate the rollout of the campaign to the new markets as quickly and efficiently as possible. We then moved into production across a wide front:
- Print – we developed this year’s Ration Challenge participant’s pack – including the Ration Guide toolkit, recipe book and poster – starting with the Australian pack, and then versioning all the materials for the three other territories
- Marketing site – we updated the Australian Ration Challenge marketing site (within a multi-site instance of WordPress) and then cloned out versions for the UK, USA and NZ campaigns so they could be localised by the partners involved
- Fundraising platform – we updated the Australian fundraising platform for 2019, producing wireframes and designs for the updated forms and pages, and then working with the team at Raisely on the development and testing. Once the Australian version had been completed and signed off, we helped roll out the platform for the new markets, customised as needed (for example, incorporating Gift Aid declarations and GDPR-related data protection notices on the UK forms). We also made updates to the Australia schools fundraising pages ready for that campaign’s second year.
- Integration with back-end systems – we updated and improved the integration services built in 2018 to push registrant and donor data into Salesforce in real time, and rolled those out for the new markets as we worked through the sequence of launches. As with last year, this was to ensure that the Ration Challenge team and the partners had all the data they needed to both run and optimise their campaigns
- Mobile app – we revised and updated the Ration Challenge mobile app (built in React Native) to help Australian participants track their fundraising, ask their friends and family for support, and access tips, recipes and other resources – all from their mobile phones
The work above all happened over the course of a couple of months, with the (first) Australian launch taking place on 25 March and the New Zealand launch happening on 26 April. We are now very close to launching the updated version of the Ration Challenge app.
The outcome
We’re still in the build-up phase to the Ration Challenge this year – the event takes place during Refugee Week (from 16-23 June). Already, many thousands of people have signed up across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, and the Challengers are busy preparing – receiving their packs, spreading the word on social, raising funds, earning those all-important rewards and, most importantly, showing their support for the cause.
It looks set to be another record-breaking year for a campaign that’s already raised over $10,000,000 to help make a difference for refugees. It’s great to see people coming together across the world to take part in this unique event and we look forward to sharing the results later in the year.