Groundswell
Connecting volunteers and simplifying service
Lead Product Designer
Groundswell is a digital web and mobile platform built to make corporate philanthropy more accessible, personalized, and impactful.
As the Lead Product Designer, I was responsible for leading the end-to-end design process, from user research to final implementation, ensuring a user-friendly and scalable solution.
The challenge
Groundswell's existing platform lacked a structured system for managing volunteer events.
Traditional organizations struggled with disjointed workflows, from event creation to volunteer coordination and tracking. Employees, of these traditional organizations, also felt less empowered to participate with any social impact initiatives - resulting in low platform engagement rates.
The solution
Design a comprehensive volunteer management system, to streamline all volunteer activities, enhance user engagement, and improve social impact tracking capabilities
Research & discovery
I met with various corporate social responsibility leaders to gather feedback and assess the current gaps in the existing platform.
I conducted a competitive analysis on other social impact platforms to understand the appetite for specific features and functionality
I facilitated a design thinking workshop with internal stakeholders to understand and align product and brand visions
User research
Organizers needed a centralized dashboard to manage multiple events efficiently
Volunteers struggled with event discovery, due to poor filtering and categorization
Limited or missing functionality led to a fragmented experience and resulted in low engagement rates
Design components between two web applications were not scalable
Key findings
Design process
Conceptualizing
I mapped out a logical workflow representing clear empathy for users needs based on key questions
For example:
• How do users easily access the volunteer platform?
• Which existing workflows would be impacted the most?
• Which volunteer features are we going to prioritize first?
• Are there any existing components we can leverage?
Design & prototyping
Once the hierarchy of information was determined, I sketched the workflows and created wireframes that would represent the new intended experience
After a few design review sessions, I created a prototype to review and test with our users. During this process, I presented 2-3 options to facilitate thoughtful design thinking discussions.
Iterative testing & refinements
After I made all the necessary refinements to the prototype, I worked closely with the engineering team to implement this new solution to ship to our customers.
Impact & Results
40%
engagement lift in event creations and approval flows
73%
reduction in admin workload with automated tracking
+$550K
in ARR, secured from closing two Fortune 500 financial institutions
"Designing for the modern philathropist"
In the effort to bridge visual design gaps between product and brand, I worked with the team to develop and organize a new design system that consisted of versatile components for our admin and end-user platforms
A new design system
Groundswell Design System
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For more regarding this case, please reach out to me at elizmvho@gmail.com
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