The Project
Volunteering to live and work on a ranch full-time is very different from other volunteering opportunities that Heifer International offers. The Heifer Ranch team wanted to create a more informative experience for potential volunteers to better communicate exactly how much of a commitment it would be. This would include setting up several new landing pages on the site and creating a new application form that was more comprehensive than the previous one.
The Challenges
Creating a new volunteer application experience caused me to reexamine the current one in order to determine what was missing. The general volunteer landing page had very little information about volunteering at Heifer Ranch and lumped it in with the more common volunteering jobs. Most people who volunteer with Heifer do so for less than 10 hours a week and work in a nice, air conditioned building. This is a completely different experience than working on a ranch. There are also several different volunteer positions at Heifer Ranch that someone could apply for, none of which were reflected on the application form.
The Solution
The first steps I took were to determine a user flow and to create wireframes. There are two entry points to the new Heifer Ranch volunteering experience, the general volunteer landing page and an informational page about Heifer Ranch. For the general volunteer page, I added a section describing the ranch and duties a volunteer would perform. From there, I produced a new volunteer page specific to Heifer Ranch that gives a brief overview of the jobs offered. Each job has its own page created that breaks down the positions. A new application form was created that includes a field to upload resumes and a section where users can select which job they are interested in.
Conclusion
More outside awareness has been brought to volunteering at Heifer Ranch than ever before — I’ve certainly learned a lot more about it from this project! Users interested in volunteering have duties and expectations clearly defined, which has encouraged more serious candidates to apply. The number of applications being received has gone up since the new experience was implemented and, thanks to the improved application form, the Heifer Ranch team now spends less time sorting through potential volunteers.
