About the Project
Blood Cancer UK has historically had an exceptionally strong sports fundraising event portfolio. A portfolio review undertaken with our sports fundraising team, however, highlighted that those who had lost someone to blood cancer and were not physically active, could not engage with our existing events portfolio. We needed something for them to engage with, so I set out to build a solution with and for that audience.
Research
To get a holistic understanding of audience need, we conducted in-depth interviews, surveys, contextual studies and desk research.
We learnt that there was a significant audience for a low-barrier-to-entry sporting event, which allowed participants to reflect as well as celebrate. The research also helped us to recognise that we lacked non-sporting events in our portfolio that you could undertake on your own. Existing events relied on having networks and the ability to organise events.
Our research showed us that over in the US, the Leukaemia & Lymphoma Society was running an event called Light the Night. This proved to be the ideal place to begin testing, to understand how this event might translate to working in the UK.
Testing
I worked closely with the agency Good Innovation as product owner to understand whether an event like Light the Night might work in the UK. We undertook in depth research interviews and surveys to understand the needs of over 150 people who fit our target audience. We learnt what might work and what might not.
Prototyping
We used the design and development criteria unearthed through user testing to create our own walks. We built three concepts to test.
The solution
We went back out to our target audience to explore what might appeal to them. We learnt that people wanted to see photos of others who looked like them and wanted a clearly communicated event name which stood out on social media.
The outcome
Walk of Light raised £463,000 from over 10,000 walkers. This was more money than any single-day event in the charity's 60 years. Over 75% of participants were new to the organisation and the event had the best-ever cost per acquisition on any charity event at just over £4 per sign-up.
