Plant your Poppy Appeal Website for the RSL (Vic)
One of our most innovative and enjoyable projects in the past few months was the creation of the www.plantyourpoppy.org.au online donations solution.
As a high-profile not-for-profit organisation, the RSL is committed every year to promote the national importance of Remembrance Day November 11 through the universally recognised symbol of the poppy.
In 2012, it became our challenge to create a customised website that allowed anyone to visit the site, share stories, anecdotes and images by planting a poppy. Our tailored solution met a specific brief from the RSL marketing team as described by the RSL (Victoria) Appeals Manager Peter Smith to create an interactive website that was contemporary, appealing to a wide audience while still respectful and commemorative and did not detract from the solemnity of the occasion.
Using an intuitive interface, visitors to the site followed a process of:
- Selecting a location on the map to plant their virtual poppy
- Planting and personalising their poppy with text and images
- raising awareness of Remembrance Day by sharing their poppy on popular social media networks Facebook and Twitter, and
- Making a donation or volunteering their services (both optional).
To create the virtual poppy garden, the Click Creative team delivered a number of creative and technical services:
- Design of park and poppies artwork
- Interface design, including popup boxes
- Interface build, including popup boxes
- Development of View Poppy feature (view submitted poppies)
- Development of Plant Your Poppy feature
- Integration of Share a Poppy feature (via Facebook and Twitter)
- Unique URL for each uploaded Poppy, which centralises screen and loads
- popup automatically
- Development of Search for Poppy feature (user inputs email address of a person who planted the poppy)
- Testing of website across all modern browsers.
In addition to the end-user requirements was the need for specific and detailed administrative functionality. Through the integration of the intuitive and highly-agile Silverstripe Content Management System, RSL administrators were automatically notified via email of new poppies being planted. For further convenience, all posts were automatically screened for inappropriate or malicious content and published immediately.
However, as a further safety net, the client was able to screen all poppies and the associated text and images submitted by the public and approve, unapprove, edit and publish the poppies.
The RSL's Peter Smith from the RSL declared the site a huge success with more than 4,300 poppies planted to date.
"The team at Click Creative understood who we were and what we were about. They had great ideas and were extremely responsive to our requests" said, Mr Smith. The reaction from the RSL team and the Victorian community have been very positive.
If you have an idea for your upcoming fundraising campaign or donations portal for your Not for Profit, we'd love to help!
