Understanding the market for giving to Australian sport

Customer Research

Market Analysis

Product Strategy

CLIENT

Australian Sports Foundation

LOCATION

Australia

Chief Design Officer, Lead Service Designer, Lead Business Designer, Visual Designer

TEAM

The Australian Sports Foundation (ASF) is Australia’s national sports fundraising organisation. The ASF donation platform allows supporters to make tax-deductible donations to campaigns developed and delivered by Australian sports organisations.

Having identified a potential opportunity to increase annual donations to Australian sport from $77m to $300m, the ASF recognised the need to completely transform their business. We entered into a research, insights and design partnership with the ASF to ensure customer insight is the cornerstone of this business transformation. 

Insight Services


Market Analysis

Customer Research

Design Services


Business Strategy

Product Strategy

Business Design

Commercial Modelling

Cultural Alignment

Understanding the market for giving

From a $2 donation to a local sports club to a multi-million-dollar transformational gift for the development of sport and cultural precinct, the market the ASF exists to serve is vast.

Before embarking on our research efforts we took the time to immerse with the team at the ASF. Through a series of workshops and 1:1 interviews, we ensured our research program would be on point, and that the ASF team was aligned, ready to change and prepared for the likely growing pains.

We then developed a full mixed-method program of research to understand this unique and complex market. This work allowed us to understand the emotions that drive the decision to donate to a sporting cause and then quantify the total addressable market for giving to Australian sport.

With an understanding of the overall market, we then dove into understanding the underlying market dynamics that will unlock growth. This deep market understanding ensured that our work not only focussed on donors and potential donors, but also the needs of vastly different potential fundraisers that develop and deliver fundraising campaigns.

The ensuing market analysis report identified the most attractive growth opportunities for the ASF to increase both the rate of conversion of partners registering projects and donations.

Insight to opportunity 

The market analysis identified two priority opportunities for the ASF to realise immediate revenue growth and return on investment:

  1. Conversion of potential fundraising partners by making the process of developing and managing a campaign easier, particularly for the volunteer fundraiser 

  2. Increasing the fundraising capability of partner organisations 

With two clear opportunities identified for defined donor and fundraiser personas, we undertook a process of mapping the journey of both creating a campaign and donating to a campaign.

Through a series of customer journey workshops, we worked with real fundraisers and donors to understand the granular detail of these processes and moments of truth that ultimately decide if a donation is or isn’t made.

Through this work, it became apparent that a donation add-on to a membership payment will remove obstacles for both fundraisers and donors by providing an option for an easy-to-administer impulse donation for the most connected audience.

The unique needs of expert professional fundraisers working within ASF partners also emerged as a key consideration through the research, particularly the need for high fundraising potential organisations to invest in developing internal fundraising capability.  

Making the numbers stack up

With a clear line of sight to two high potential growth opportunities our business analysts got to work developing the business case for both opportunities.

The business case process ensures that what is desired by the customer is also viable for our partners, allowing them to invest and commit with confidence.

Gerard Kennedy
Business Design Director, Kinlab

The Outcomes

The market analysis and priority opportunities have been embedded into the 2024FY business plan for the ASF. The organisation is currently in the process of developing donation membership add-on functionality and redesigning its key account servicing approach.


Milestones

Verification of the growth opportunity

Embedded customer behaviour into business decision-making

Priority growth initiatives for 2024 financial year based on market insight and analysis developed through the research and insights partnership


Delivered

Change Readiness Assessment

Market Analysis Report

Fundraiser Personas

Donor Personas

Fundraiser Journey Map

Donor Journey Map

Commercial Model

Fundraising Partner Opportunity Assessment Model

Let's innovate the future of sport

Let's innovate the future of sport

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