Creating a force for good
On the heels of its 75th anniversary, the USO needed to attract new audiences, reach service members online, raise funds, and tell its story. I led a design, UX, and technology team to refine the USO story, create an experience built for supporters and service members, and build a design system that was scalable across all of their channels and properties.
CREATING A FORCE FOR GOOD
It's no secret that there's a drift between the military and the American public. 97% of service members claim that the general public doesn't understand what they do on a daily basis. I collaborated with USO to alter its messaging to focus specifically on the benefits of the military while showcasing on the ground activities and behind-the-scenes takes of the military to make them more familiar with the American public
An experience for supporters and service members
We focused on making the main .org property a fundraising and supporter property. Location sites and the mobile app served service members. This allowed us to create user journeys and messaging to support each of these audiences. Fundraising, program, and event data was shared between a Salesforce CMS, the main website, a custom rails application, and a native mobile app. A pattern library allowed the system to grow as needed.
A salute to fundraising
Since the entire digital experience was built on a scalable digital library, a suite of fundraising tools and components were built to support the site, email landing pages, and partner communications. These were all tied to one payment processing tool and USO's CRM. These were optimized and tested in collaboration with USO's internal team.
CAMPAIGN TO CONNECT
After we created the tools and the right story, we worked with the USO to develop and build a worldwide message campaign that allowed the American public to send letters to USO service members. Messages were collected online, at kiosks in airports, and at events. They were sent to screens, digital picture frames, and through snail mail to service members worldwide. Over three and a half million messages were created.
