The Ian Potter Foundation

There were 3 main hurdles to face in this project: - Functionally, the website required a complex relationship model between funding areas, funding rounds and funding managers. Additionally, the new design needed to give simple and streamlined guidance that informed the user at every step of their eligibility/ineligibility with respect to seeking a grant. - Creating a site that championed the Foundation’s 4 Funding Pillars, key themes which are the crux of all funding efforts. - User-friendly experience that needed to qualify eligible grant-seekers, and also discourages ineligible grant-seekers from applying. - To decrease clicks, the introduction of a mega navigation was utilised.

To achieve a complete functional site design with a seamless user experience we implemented the following: - Removed the dark shading and overlays from the original site and created a cleaner, brighter site design. - Creation of a ‘Can We Apply?’ page and quiz. The tool became a soft way to qualify applicant eligibility, before reaching the final application stages. - Integration of the 4 Funding Pillars. With the Pillars representing the scaffolding for all funding areas, the design respected this by establishing a seamless hierarchy from Pillar all the way down to application.

With the 4 Funding Pillars, we distilled a complex relationship between funding areas, rounds, and managers into pages that directed visitors to the information they required. Concurrently, softly qualify grant-seekers well before they begin the application process. Since going live, our “how to apply” pages are now the most visited on the site. The new design is doing its job: guiding and educating users on the value of each funding area, and its prerequisites to apply for a grant.

Another major change to the online grant application process was the introduction of a “Booking a Call” feature. This feature allowed users to contact program managers directly during the open funding round. We used varied integrations to achieve this, along with UX questions to inform users of when and how to book a call. The final website was also built to conform to WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards.