Donation campaigns are outdated: when a disaster strikes, NGO's typically launch large (tv) campaigns in order to collect the money that is needed to intervene. These campaigns take some days to create and get on the air, which means the loss of the first 72 hours, which are crucial to limit the damage of a disaster. This way of fundraising isn’t efficient and doesn’t resonate with the mindset of Millennials, who are used to digital, customer-centric, and efficient platforms in daily life.

As Doctors Without Borders’ donor base is aging, we were challenged to find a connection to Millennials and make them part of our donor base.

This briefing had two objectives:

1. Position Doctors Without Borders as a progressive, innovative brand that constantly challenges its own borders.

2. rejuvenating the donor base by convincing Millennials to make their (first) donation.

In order to find a connection with Millennials, Doctors Without Borders had to make its donation system more efficient and more transparent. The use of data formed a solution for both challenges.

Disasters are always presented as they come as a surprise, while in fact, data can predict many disasters like disease outbreaks, natural disasters, refugee migration, and violence. By systematically collecting data in risk areas, our online tool can send emergency signals faster than any human could do. This idea was the foundation for a completely new fundraising method, called ‘prepaid donations’: with prepaid donations you donate at any time. This amount is linked to Doctors Without Borders’ monitoring systems and when a disaster happens, your donation is released and intervention teams are activated. Prepaid donors are informed when this happens and get updates of the intervention teams.

The prepaid donation platform is fuelled by over 10 real-time emergency data points. Permanently monitoring refugee streams, disease outbreaks, and natural and humanitarian disasters. When the system detects an abnormality in the data trends, a notification is sent to the Doctors Without Borders teams that assess the needs on the field and take action if needed.

Every disaster gets processed differently. If we take for example an earthquake:

We look at the strength of the earthquake, location, tsunami danger, how close it is to people, and how much people can be affected. All that data combined gives us a red/orange/green score. Where orange and red are immediately sent to Doctors Without Borders to assess. Our data stream is a mix of global monitoring organizations like WHO, GDACS, … and some private data points.

This innovative, digital tool asked for a digital-first communication approach. A triggering online video was spread with Facebook lead ads and smart media choices like Twitch, targeted towards Millennials.

This ad linked directly to the innovative and mobile website of prepaid donations, a software as a service with lifetime value. On The website, the audience found a clear 4 steps roadmap and an explanation video. The website was made with special attention to user experience (with an easy flow leading to a donation) and innovative design. The landing page invited the audience to the first interaction with real-time data. On an interactive globe, pulsing circles indicate where data measures dangerous situations. When users click on these pulsing circles, they can find all information about the situation and the presence of Doctors Without Borders teams.

Next to a reach of 5.8 million people through PR and online video, and 121.500 of them engaging with the platform, we managed to convince the target group of the impact of a prepaid donation. 76% of the prepaid donors were aged 18-44 yo (compared to 39% of the classic donors), making us rejuvenate the total donor base by 18%. With a conversion rate of over 2% on the prepaid platform, compared to 0,6% on the general Doctors Without Borders site, we've increased the donor base in combination to a higher lifetime value. Both KPIs are ongoing and getting supported growth plans to expand this number.