3-Sided Volunteer Matching Platform

Process

1. 1. Research & Personas

   Synthesizing research across three very different user types

   • Synthesized interview notes from the founding team's prior research to identify trends across volunteers, nonprofits, and corporate clients.
   • Created four personas: a volunteer (wants to contribute but can't find the right match), a nonprofit director (overwhelmed, needs reliable skilled help), a marketing director (wants authentic employee impact stories), and an HR manager (needs to track and report volunteer activity at scale).
   • Applied an emotional design lens — visceral (celebration animations), behavioral (easy opportunity discovery), reflective (sense of meaning through the platform) — to frame design priorities beyond pure functionality.

2. 2. Information Architecture

   Designing three distinct portals that still talk to each other

   • Mapped user flows for all three groups, then built a unified workflow diagram showing how they connect — volunteer applies, nonprofit reviews, corporate tracks impact.
   • Designed separate IA for each portal: volunteer profile/matching, nonprofit opportunity management, corporate employee engagement dashboard.
   • Created low-fidelity wireframes to validate navigation structure before investing in high-fidelity.

3. 3. Prototyping

   High-fidelity design system built for a multi-portal product

   • Built a full design system in Figma: Raleway/Quicksand typography, brand color palette, component library, status indicators, and category tags.
   • Iterated through two versions of the design guide before landing on the production spec.
   • Built prototypes for all three portals — each with distinct navigation structures tailored to their workflows while maintaining visual consistency across the product.

4. 4. Volunteer Portal

   Making opportunity discovery feel personal, not like a job board

   • Dashboard: personalized recommendations, active applications, impact tracking, and movement discovery.
   • Opportunities List: filterable by interest area, posting type, and MeaningfulMatch AI recommendations.
   • Opportunity Details: organization context, impact goals, skills match, and a clear apply flow.

5. 5. Nonprofit Portal

   Giving nonprofits real control over recruiting and tracking

   • Dashboard: open opportunities, active connections, and long-term goal tracking.
   • Opportunities List: post/edit opportunities, view applicant counts and progress.
   • Applicants Manager: review profiles, check skills, schedule meetings — all in one place.

6. 6. Corporate Portal

   Turning employee volunteering into measurable impact

   • Dashboard: employee leaderboard, impact metrics, nonprofit connections, and news feed.
   • Employees view: skills, impact areas, and generate individual impact reports.
   • Impact Dashboard: monthly engagement charts, top impact areas, and personal development goal tracking.

7. 7. Usability Testing

   26 participants across all three user groups, real scripts, real findings

   • Recruited 11 volunteers, 10 nonprofits, and 5 company representatives for structured usability sessions.
   • SUS scores: Volunteers 8.7/10 · Nonprofits 8.4/10 · Companies 8.1/10.
   • Key findings: volunteers struggled to surface opportunities that matched their specific interests; nonprofits wanted accountability tracking and contribution history; companies prioritized employee engagement and retention visibility.
   • Wrote separate testing scripts for each user group with tailored task scenarios and think-aloud protocols.

8. 8. Implementation

   QA and close collaboration through to beta release

   • Worked closely with engineers during implementation — providing detailed design documentation and addressing technical questions in real time.
   • Conducted QA testing to catch inconsistencies before release.
   • Platform shipped within the 4-month timeline, aligned with a major nonprofit conference.