Sponsor an African Scholar (SAAS)
Sponsor an African Scholar (SAAS) supports Kenyan students’ education and career growth with an easy-to-use sponsorship platform.
PROJECT GALLERY
TECHNOLOGY STACK
Requirements
SAAS Redesign: Seamless Sponsorship, Global Impact
SAAS needed a responsive, accessible WordPress site that delivers their mission, simplifies sponsorships, integrates email automation, ensures GDPR compliance, and supports multi-device engagement for Irish and Kenyan audiences.
THE CHALLENGE
A platform designed to turn SAAS’s 18 years of impact
into real
sponsorship opportunities.
The old website was outdated, with a complex donation process and limited donor insights. The new platform needed to simplify storytelling, donations, sponsor communication, and reporting in a GDPR-compliant, accessible system.
SOLUTION
We designed and built a purpose-driven digital platform that transforms visitor empathy into measurable, sustained sponsorship action.
- Mission-First Storytelling Design
- Streamlined Donation & Sponsorship Flow
- Impact Stories Content System
- Email Marketing Automation
- GDPR-Compliant Architecture
- Performance-Optimized Responsive Build
EXECUTION
Research-Driven UX
Stakeholder interviews, donor journey mapping, and a full content audit across the existing platform.
Storytelling-First Design
Emotionally compelling UI with conversion-optimized layouts and mobile-first responsiveness.
Optimized Launch
Performance tuning, accessibility audits, GDPR review, and hands-on CMS training for the SAAS team.
"Our new website reflects our mission, connecting donors with students through a seamless sponsorship flow and giving our team clear insight into our impact."
Fionnuala Darby
Founder & Director, SAAS
Key Features
Mission-Driven Homepage
A visually compelling landing experience that immediately communicates SAAS's purpose through impactful photography, student success narratives, and strategically placed sponsorship calls to action — designed to convert first-time visitors into engaged supporters within seconds.
Streamlined Donation Flow
A simplified, mobile-optimized donation process with minimal form fields, inline validation, and secure multi-payment gateway support. Designed to eliminate friction at every step and make contributing effortless at any giving level.
Sponsorship Programme Hub
A dedicated section that clearly explains how sponsorship works — what contributions fund, the journey of a sponsored student, and the measurable impact of each sponsorship. Transparency that builds trust and converts interest into long-term commitment.
Student Impact Stories
A dynamic content section powered by custom post types, enabling the SAAS team to publish individual student profiles, progress updates, and success stories — giving donors a personal, ongoing connection to the lives they directly support.
Responsive Mobile-First Design
Full feature parity across desktop, tablet, and mobile — critical for a charity where a significant majority of traffic originates from social media campaigns and email newsletters accessed on smartphones.
GDPR-Compliant Data Handling
Secure forms with explicit consent mechanisms, granular cookie management, integrated privacy policies, and compliant data storage practices — ensuring donor trust and full regulatory compliance across European data protection standards.
Intuitive Content Management
A carefully structured WordPress backend with custom content types, reusable blocks, and a logical editorial workflow — empowering the SAAS team to independently publish news, events, annual reports, and programme updates without technical assistance.
Email Marketing Integration
Seamless connection with Mailchimp, enabling automated welcome sequences for new donors, donation receipts, quarterly impact updates, and targeted campaign newsletters — nurturing long-term donor relationships and increasing retention at scale.
Performance-Optimized Architecture
Server-side caching, next-gen image formats with lazy loading, minified CSS and JavaScript bundles, and CDN delivery — ensuring consistently fast page loads even on slower mobile connections, is common across both Irish and Kenyan audiences.
Accessibility Compliance
WCAG 2.1 AA compliant design with semantic heading hierarchy, comprehensive alt text management, full keyboard navigation support, and sufficient color contrast ratios — making the platform genuinely inclusive for all users regardless of ability.
SEO-Optimized Foundation
Semantic HTML markup, optimized metadata, automatically generated XML sitemaps, Open Graph tags, and structured data — improving organic search visibility and helping SAAS reach new potential donors and volunteers through search.
Events & Campaign Management
A structured content system for creating, promoting, and archiving charity events, fundraising drives, and organizational milestones — keeping the community actively informed and engaged with SAAS's ongoing initiatives throughout the year.