10 Pound Gorilla

Steps to Success

The Grand Foundation was looking to connect and identify with new donor opportunities to increase their giving funds. 10 Pound Gorilla partnered with the Grand Foundation to do a total revamp of their brand and website with the goal of increasing engagement and attracting new donors.

Connecting with Residents

10 Pound Gorilla started by identifying the key takeaways and user groups of the Grand Foundation. The Grand Foundation collects and allocates donations for various causes and donations can be earmarked for those specific causes. The residents of Grand County are inherently passionate about where they live and their hobbies. Therefore, we crafted the slogan “Share Your Passion, Give to Your Community” to connect with donors on a personal level to encourage participation.

Another crucial step in connecting with the county and residents is establishing the Grand Foundation as the leader and go-to non-profit resource in Grand County. A business's stats and perceived relevance can play an important role in influencing whether a potential customer makes a purchase, or in this case, a donation. To help establish the Grand Foundation as the most reliable and responsible resource to manage non-profit activity, we gave prominence to the Grand Foundation’s stats and accomplishments throughout the site.

Exploring Ways to Give

After establishing a personal connection and trust with users, the next step was to highlight the different avenues for giving. Due to the variety of causes, funds and grant opportunities, we needed to showcase all options for donations: planned giving, purchasing a Grand Pass, volunteering, and so much more. Immediately on the home page, users are presented with different avenues of giving to encourage them to explore and learn more about the method of giving that best suits them.

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10 Pound Gorilla has worked with the Colorado Cross Country Ski Association since 2007 with minimal involvement until 2014. In 2014, we pitched a campaign that increased the Association’s annual funding by $60,000 and changed the organization overnight. This year, the CCCSA expects to bring in more than $75,000 through its annual fundraising campaign.

10 Pound Gorilla developed a social media strategy to promote CCCSA members and introduce new enthusiasts to the sport. In 2016, the campaign raised over $47,000 in revenue and attracted roughly 2,800 visitors, of whom 2,380 were new to the participating resorts. In just 4 months, the campaign generated roughly 4,567,800 impressions for the CCCSA.

During the 2016/2017 season, we implemented an e-newsletter sign-up offer, which increased subscribers by roughly 1500 in less than three months. The newly redesigned website increased website visits by 67% in less than one year.

10 Pound Gorilla conceived and implemented a Season Punch Pass program and a Colorado Nordic race series. The Punch Pass launched in November 2016 and earned the CCCSA more than $10,000 with roughly $25,000 in paid ad value from a single press release. The race series opened relationships with Nordic clubs and sports shops and created sponsorship conversations with industry partners. PR efforts led to an internationally syndicated radio interview with an audience of over 10.5 million.

Due to our successful marketing efforts and a hands-on push to attract new members, we increased membership by 73% in 2016. Additionally, we succeeded at getting more members actively involved in the Association’s efforts and missions. Our program revitalized members and energized visitors.

10 Pound Gorilla created a unified experience with a complete website overhaul, brand enhancement, integration of single sign-on (SSO) for all 3rd-party services, and syncing of member and organization data via an application programming interface (API).

Seamless User Experience 

Maintaining the distinct characters of HAI’s multiple sister-sites was critical. Therefore, 10 Pound Gorilla optimized HAI’s menu to incorporate their five sister-sites and designed a user experience to seamlessly preserves multiple brand identities. We used color coding to allow users to easily identify various sections of the website and designed cohesive program logos to strengthen the overall HAI brand while maintaining the identity of each program.

Dynamic Resource Center

HAI’s website hosted a significant amount of resources that were difficult to administer, identify, and discover. To make resources manageable, 10 Pound Gorilla built a dynamic resource center that gives administrators an easy way to list resources in multiple site sections and allows users to find resources easily.

Custom Applications

10 Pound Gorilla also built several custom applications, including a photo contest module. The photo module allows for automatic upload of entries to HAI’s YouTube channel and storage of videos in the cloud. We also designed and implemented a social voting system for community nominations to encourage traffic, engagement, and promotion. Lastly, we built an internal scoring application for easy organization.

Foolproof Content Management

In order to maintain the quality of the new user experience, 10 Pound Gorilla customized the content management system to allow site administrators to edit content easily at both a macro and micro level without ever having to compromise aesthetics or functionality.

See the full case study here