Charitable Connections

Group Members

  • Emily Kuo (ekuo8)
  • Gil O'Neil (goneil)
  • Max Stein-Golenbock (msteing)

GR1 - User Observation and Analysis

GR2 - Designs

GR3 - Paper Prototyping

GR4 - Computer Prototype

GR5 - Implementation

GR6 - User Testing

GR1: User Observation and Analysis

Observations and Interviews

Client Interviews (2)

Client Interview 1:

This interviewee is a 21 year old MIT undergrad student who took part in planning a basketball tournament for a student charity group. As this was a charity event, she was looking for businesses to donate the winning prizes for the tournament. She spent time reaching out to businesses by e-mail, phone, or in person. After researching, she was prepared with her approaches, making sure to inform the businesses about the cause, the event, and how the donations would be used. She was also prepared with all paperwork necessary. The issues that she was met with involved the actual interaction with the businesses. Oftentimes when walking into a business, the manager would not be there and she would have to go in another time or they would tell her to call/email the manager. Even if she made the initial contact, sometimes she would have to call again or e-mail again to actually get the donations, other times companies had already reached their philanthropy budget so they could not donate.

Notes: She had to call twice and send a reminder e-mail to get the City Sports donations. She had to call three different Trader Joe's to get a donation because different locations had different budgets. She contacted Puma but they would not donate because they don't make basketball gear. The City Sports manager wanted to see all the material that she put the City Sports logo onto (posters, website).

Client Interview 2:

This interviewee is a 17 year old MIT undergrad student and Eagle Scout who organized a book drive for his local children's hospital.   He heard from word of mouth that his local hardware store often supports eagle projects.  He walked into the store, asked for the manager and then pitched the event to the manager and asked for supplies to be donated to help build book carts used in the book drive.  A problem the interviewee encountered was that the manager changed mid project and the interviewee needed to pitch the entire project again to the new manager.

Business in-person Interviews (4)

These stores are all located in Central Square, Cambridge.

Cambridge Bicycle:

This is a local small business. The manager said that they are often overwhelmed with requests for donations. They donate in order to strengthen the community and do good, and they do not consider the donation for its marketing or advertising value. Therefore, they generally donate a bike to local community events.

Toscanini's Ice Cream:

This is another local small business. The manager has a very subjective process for donations. They usually only donate their ice cream to events with some personal relevance to the manager. For example, they sponsored an employee's party.

Blick Art Materials:

This is a large chain store with locations throughout the country. They readily advertise their involvement in donations. Their most important criterion for an event is the marketing and advertising opportunity. Therefore, they only donate to art-related events. Donation proposals pass from local store manager to regional higher-ups. Each store filters local event proposals. They partner with a group of Boston-area colleges and are pro-active in visiting these schools and giving out free materials to promote their brand. They usually get a good return from these marketing campaigns and other donation event involvement by getting a high percentage of repeat customers.

Chipotle:

This is a large chain store with locations throughout the country. They sponsor events that align with their values of community, health, local growers and organic food. If a proposal is good, the local store manager will directly approve it. Otherwise, it will be passed on to a corporate higher-up to decide.

Business Phone Interview (1)

Trader Joe's:

This is a large chain store located throughout the country.  Trader Joe's gets from 1-5 sponsorship requests a week on average except for during christmas season when it gets many more.  They donate frequently especially if the event is benefiting education, medicine or arts.  A store manager handles donations at the this store and is able to donate provided that they are given written proof from the charity and are provided with the correct tax forms.  Trader Joe's has a donation budget and are less likely to give if they exceeded the budget.  They look to get marketing opportunities from their donations and have had success with this in the past.  The impression they receive from the client is important in their decision to donate.  The standard way to get donations is to write a letter 3 weeks in advance of the event date.  The biggest reason for  not donating is too tight of a time frame.

User Classes

Group 1: Client Side

  • Member of a charity group
  • Planning event for the charity
  • Looking for donations from businesses

Group 2: Business Side

  • Receive requests from many groups asking for donations
  • Must filter through requests to find those matching their standards
  • Choose which groups to donate to
  • Ensure that all paperwork is received
  • Promote their name/ products
  • Want to promote community building

Task Analysis

  1. Make it easier for event planners to find businesses likely to donate
  2. Provide guidance to event planners on how to contact businesses
  3. Provide incentive for businesses to donate to maximize the benefit they receive from sponsoring events
  4. Help businesses evaluate the legitimacy of contacts

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1 Comment

  1. Unknown User (jks@mit.edu)

    Overall: You've picked an interesting, but broad problem statement with similarly broad user classes, needs and goals. You need to focus your problem statement in some way. Two ways to do this are: (a) focus your target users (e.g. consider one instance of a charity or one instance of a donor, instead of the generic fundraiser), and (b) focus on one aspect of the problem (e.g. helping donors understand how their money is being spent).

    • Problem Statement: Solid problem statement in terms of user goals and obstacles.
    • User Analysis: Good role-based division of user classes.
    • Needs/Goals Analysis:
      • You've misinterpreted task analysis. In fact, GR1 called for a needs/goals analysis, which makes me think you weren't following the handout.
      • The idea is to identify the user's high-level goals, not your tasks as designers that will help to solve the problem.
    • Interviews/Observation:
      • Your interviews do not go deep enough. In particular, your business-side interviews don't seem to uncover any problems faced by businesses when selecting donors. 
      • You've ascertained that different types of business have different donation criteria, but haven't delved into the difficulties implied by your problem statement: 'businesses being overwhelmed by charities.'