RSPCA Victoria's New Website - An MR & A Case Study

The best not for profit websites inspire actions that support their missions, in the case of RSPCA Victoria this is advocating for animal safety and care, receiving donations to support all functions, and educating the public for animal care and most importantly preventing animal cruelty.

Effective websites feature content that is organised and customised to help users—from the people they serve to donors, partners, and other volunteers—get the info and resources they need when they need them.

Wanting to elevate their website offerings to expand their reach and simplify administrative tasks, RSPCA Victoria reached out to Matthew Ryan and Associates for help to revamp its web presence, given our long-standing partnership over several years that has seen MR& A deliver Finance System Solutions, Cloud Computing transformation, advising the RSPCA Victoria Digital Transformation, and mentorship of the IT team.

 Unlike most other animal welfare organisations and charities, RSPCA Victoria has a complex operating model that includes multiple services and activities. RSPCA Victoria is:

• an animal shelter.
• a regulatory body authorised by the Victorian Government.
• a fundraising organisation.
• an operator of op shops across Victoria.
• an education provider.
• an expert in, and advocate for, animal welfare.
• a retail specialist.
• a service provider for councils.
• a registered domestic animal business; and
• a provider of veterinary services to the community.

These activities are diverse, yet they all come under the umbrella of the one RSPCA Victoria brand.

With all of this in mind RSPCA Victoria needed a more intuitive site allowing users to find information easily when they needed it with as few clicks as possible. Furthermore, they need users to engage with many areas of the site to:

• Encourage people to donate by maximising donation and funding opportunities
• Encourage people to respond to requests for support
• Improve customer service experience by making it quicker and easier for customers to access the services, products, information, or advice they are seeking online
• Provide context for users wherever they enter the site.
• Advertise and highlight the uniqueness and variety of their services to public, partners, and media
• Become the online destination for resources on animal welfare and health
• Not lose content or functionality regardless of device or browser being used for viewing
• Create and inspire community discussion and engagement around the issues communities face.

 To do this Matthew Ryan and Associates, along with RSPCA Victoria went to market and engaged with several design and programming firms to ensure that the new site contained.

• Intuitive navigation
• Simple Site structure
• Streamlined design
• Responsive design
• An easy to use, preferably open-source CMS.
• Inclusive design to WACG Standards.
• Education offerings
• Consistency in layout
• Sharing capabilities
• Mixed media approach
• Sensitive content warning
• Contact forms
• Improved filtering within search functionality
• Dedicated media page/library
• Enhanced presence for sponsors and corporate partners
• Best practice SEO
• Additional integrations with current and future business systems
• Alignment with the technology road map

 We all know that RSPCA Victoria is an extremely well known and recognised brand – particularly with older Victorians. A non-negotiable feature of the new website was that it must not alienate older supporters, but we knew a fresh look and feel within the brand guidelines was warranted.

A key focus was to implement a variety of strategies to attract younger supporters and a modern, dynamic looking website was a vital component. That meant the new site must be boosted by greater photographic and video content. The tone of the site must be friendly and compassionate but authoritative and science based.

Matthew Ryan and Associates Provided….

MR&A were engaged to project manage the entire process from RFP, vendor selection and negotiations through design and production, go live and post implementation improvement, as we had done previously in 2020-2021 for the systems and processes transformation of the finance, procurement, and budgeting platforms

It was the success of that finance project, which allowed us to lead at an executive level, the entire website process. Several integrations with current systems were created to meet the demand of multiple business users, freeing them to enhance the business through better reporting, less human management, adopting best practice and managing the business in more agile ways.

We are proud of our contribution to RSPCA Victoria’s of ability to deliver critical services and the improvements we have helped develop.

Development can now be done in a matter of days rather than months, so cost and time to market have been drastically reduced.

New functionalities and features are added to the website environments at RSPCA Victoria’s choosing. Improved internal engagement has led to more effective relationships with employees, branches, key supporters, and the community overall. As such, the team react immediately to changing requirements, which has a clear impact on income, donations, core awareness, animal care and advocacy.

We think the finished product speaks for itself, with RSPCA Victoria’s new website and environment, placing them at the forefront of animal care, support, advocacy, and associated services. You can see it here at www.rspcavic.org.au  

MR & A very much thank the entire RSPCA Victoria Team and Volunteers, for their faith in us and very much look forward to our next project together!

Who is Matthew Ryan & Associates?

Here at MR & A we use successful strategies we have developed over the last 20 years to inspire, motivate, and educate you and your business on how to leverage market conditions, transform, grow, and get results through better strategy, optimisation, and technology.

 If you’re a business owner, MD, Founder or CEO, CIO, CTO or Director who wants to take their results and teams to the next levels of profit and engagement please contact us today via email [email protected], via mobile 0488 000 521, direct LinkedIn message or book a 15 min call with us via Calendly:- https://calendly.com/matthew-ryan-and-associates/website-introduction