MFA
Rebuilding a Global Nonprofit’s Donor Experience Across 6 Markets
Overview
Mercy For Animals (MFA) is a global non-profit advocating for animals through education, policy change, and grassroots activism. As the organization scaled internationally, its digital ecosystem became fragmented across regions—making it harder to tell a cohesive story, convert supporters, and optimize donations.
MFA partnered with WANDR to bring clarity, structure, and evidence-based decision-making to their digital experience—starting with deep research, then unifying their platforms into a single, scalable global system.
The Challenges
Despite a strong mission and deeply engaged supporters, Mercy For Animals struggled to translate urgency into meaningful action online. The challenge wasn’t visual—it was strategic. Donors were dropping off at critical emotional moments, global sites told inconsistent stories, and teams lacked a shared understanding of what truly motivated supporters to donate or take action. Fragmented platforms made iteration slow and expensive, limiting the organization’s ability to learn and improve. Leadership needed answers, not opinions—and a partner who could ground decisions in real user behaviour.
1. Guesswork-Driven Decision Making
MFA lacked a clear, research-backed understanding of donor behavior. The team had limited insight into why users engaged but didn’t convert, which messages motivated action, and where momentum was lost in the journey. As a result, many product and messaging decisions relied on assumptions rather than real user data.
2. Fragmented Global Digital Presence
MFA’s digital presence was spread across six independent regional websites, each with different UX patterns, narratives, and information architecture. This created an inconsistent experience for users while forcing internal teams to duplicate work across regions. The fragmentation weakened brand clarity and made global optimization difficult.
3. High Emotional Stakes, Low Conversion Clarity
Advocacy platforms operate under intense emotional pressure, requiring a careful balance between urgency and trust. MFA needed a clearer pathway to guide users from emotional engagement to meaningful action. Without it, many potential supporters disengaged before converting.
Wandr Solutions
The engagement began with a deep research phase designed to understand what was happening beneath the data—and why supporters were not taking the actions MFA expected.
Phase 1 — Deep User & Donor Research
WANDR conducted an intensive research phase across MFA’s digital ecosystem to uncover friction in the supporter journey. The team combined qualitative user interviews, donor journey analysis, content and messaging audits, and stakeholder workshops to align internal assumptions with real user behaviour.
The research revealed that while users strongly aligned with MFA’s mission, many experienced decision fatigue before donating. Messaging emphasized urgency but often lacked clarity around individual impact, and donation flows asked for commitment before trust was fully established. Regional websites also told inconsistent stories, weakening global brand credibility. Most critically, analysis revealed a 90% drop-off at the primary donation decision point, exposing a major opportunity for improvement.These insights reframed MFA’s digital strategy, replacing assumptions with evidence.
Phase 2 — Global UX Strategy & Platform Unification
Guided by research insights, WANDR partnered with MFA to redesign the core donor and activist journeys and unify the platform’s global experience. UX patterns, messaging, and information architecture were standardized across six regional websites while still allowing regional flexibility.
Donation flows were simplified to reduce friction while maintaining the emotional storytelling central to MFA’s advocacy work. Rather than forcing strict uniformity, WANDR introduced a modular global framework that allowed regional teams to localize content without breaking UX consistency.
Phase 3 — Design System & Scalable Operations
To support long-term growth, WANDR implemented a shared design system aligned with MFA’s brand and advocacy mission. Reusable components for campaigns, education, and donation experiences enabled internal teams to launch and iterate pages more quickly.
This shift moved MFA from reactive updates toward a more structured and scalable digital operation, allowing teams to work faster while maintaining consistency across the global platform.
Together, these efforts transformed MFA’s digital platform into a clearer, more cohesive experience—one designed to convert emotional engagement into meaningful action while enabling teams to scale their impact globally.
IMPACT & RESULTS
- 17% Increased supporter action and donation conversions
- Unified 6 global MFA websites into one scalable platform
- A unified design and content system reduced reliance on engineering, cutting page creation and updates by 78%.
- Research-backed messaging that clarified what motivates supporters
Conclusion
WANDR didn’t just redesign Mercy For Animals’ website—we rebuilt the foundation of how the organization connects emotion, trust, and action at a global scale.
By grounding strategy in deep research and unifying fragmented platforms, MFA gained clarity, consistency, and a digital ecosystem capable of supporting long-term advocacy and growth.
WANDR brought structure, clarity, and research-backed insight to a very complex digital challenge. Their work helped us unify our global sites, improve supporter engagement, and make better decisions grounded in real user behaviour. They felt like a true partner, not just a vendor”
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