Doug Crissman Designer

Category: Uncategorized

  • Strengthening Support: Refining the Oakland Institute Donation Experience

    A More Impactful Giving Experience

    To better advance the organization’s mission and increase donor engagement, I refined the giving experience across the website, email, and social media—making it easier to give and more compelling to act.

    Key Improvements

    From page design to messaging cadence, every change was made to reduce friction, build trust, and reinforce why each contribution matters.

    Redesigned Donation Page: Introduced a more visual, mobile-friendly layout that emphasizes the why behind each donation and builds trust through clear design and impact messaging.

    Before

    After

    User-Centered Messaging: Rewrote key donation copy to spotlight the tangible outcomes of donor support, showing how contributions help expose injustice and support communities worldwide.

    Consistent Communication: Increased the frequency and clarity of calls-to-action across email and social media, creating more touchpoints for engagement without overwhelming supporters.

    Results

    Twice as Many Donors Took Action

    A simplified donation experience and stronger storytelling inspired more people to give.

    Modest but Positive Growth in Donations

    While the total dollar amount rose slightly, the growth in individual donors lays the groundwork for more sustainable fundraising over time.

    Project Impact

    The shift wasn’t just in numbers—it was in connection. A more intentional giving experience helped supporters feel confident, informed, and inspired to take action.

  • Website Redesign & Migration

    A Decade-Old Site, Reimagined

    The Oakland Institute website had not seen a major update in over a decade. With outdated technology, a cumbersome structure, and a design that no longer reflected the quality of its research, the site was long overdue for a refresh. I led a full-scale redesign and platform migration to modernize their digital presence—resulting in a faster, more accessible, and user-centered experience.

    Key Improvements

    The redesign prioritized user needs, content discoverability, and operational efficiency. Below are the most impactful changes and what they achieved:

    Content-Led Design: Surfaced a greater variety of stories and publications on the homepage through a more dynamic and content-rich layout—encouraging exploration across a wider range of the Institute’s work.

    Result: Increased the number of unique articles clicked from the homepage and boosted the prominence of stories among top clickthroughs.

    Simplified Navigation: Made it easier to find key reports and related content with clearer hierarchy, structured layouts, and prominent calls to action that guides users to high-impact content.

    Result: Users engaged more deeply with priority content—more downloads and higher views per visit.

    BEFORE

    AFTER

    Smarter Reading Experience: Made longform articles easier to navigate with section overviews and improved footnotes—supporting both content engagement and inclusive access.

    Result: Users stayed longer and engaged more deeply, with average reading time doubling.

    Modern Infrastructure: Migrated the site from Drupal 7 to 11, gaining a modern development foundation, cleaner templating, and dramatically faster publishing workflows—making it easier to maintain, scale, and evolve over time.

    Result: Reduced publishing time and increased reliability in content updates through an improved development workflow.

    Project Impact

    A modernized platform that advances the Oakland Institute’s mission by making its research more discoverable, its message more compelling, and its engagement with key audiences more effective.

    But improving how people access the Institute’s work was only part of the transformation. Learn how I also enhanced the donation experience to grow support and deepen impact:

    Read about the fundraising improvements →