The NSPCC is one of the UK’s best-known charities, having helped to protect 6.6 million children from abuse over the past five years. But post-pandemic, the charity had some issues attracting, recruiting and retaining employees and volunteers. There was fierce competition with other employers such as local authorities for specialist roles such as social workers, while the cost-of-living crisis affected volunteers’ ability to devote their time for free.

BrandPointZero worked with NSPCC to pinpoint what makes working at the charity distinctive and to convey this through a smooth digital experience. The goal was to attract great people to the organisation, making it easy for them to connect to NSPCC and apply for open roles. Extensive internal research revealed ‘moments of truth’ in the recruitment and onboarding process that would give NSPCC the edge. Externally they wanted to understand what people’s motivations would be to work for a charity or volunteer. From this research, they created five personas and user journeys to use for a revised website architecture.

Key pieces of content included a video from the CEO explaining why NSPCC can’t survive without its people’; a creative platform that shows how people see things differently in the right situations; another film from NSPCC employees calling candidates to apply by explaining the role they play in its success; and employee and volunteer stories about their impact on the charity. A candidate roadmap directs people back to relevant roles and what explains what to expect at each stage of the journey. It is early days but the new user experience is already a huge success, with a significant increase in users and decrease in bounce rate. And most importantly a very significant increase in both quality and volume of completed applications per role advertised.