Optimizing Fiscal Sponsorship
Ribbon, a revolutionary fiscal sponsorship platform, serves as the bridge connecting non-profit sponsors with diverse programs. It offers a secure and comprehensive suite of tools designed to streamline compliant banking, oversee donor and team interactions, and facilitate fundraising efforts.
Overview
Project Summary
Sponsors currently grapple with manual, resource-draining fund management, limiting their financial control. Ribbon addresses these challenges with real-time banking services, offering a unified platform for connecting bank accounts and allocating funds to programs. This solution enhances transparency, efficiency, and financial optimization for nonprofit sponsors.
Team
Head of Product, CEO, Lead Software Engineer, Solo Designer (Me)
My Role
Designing the feature end-to-end, working closely with the product and development team.
Duration
6 months
Success Metrics
Platform usage, user satisfaction, automation, increased sales, decreased support calls
Background
What is fiscal sponsorship?
Non-profit fiscal sponsorship is a teamwork approach where one charity, known as the sponsor, supports and oversees another, called the program, that lacks its own tax-exempt status. The supporting charity takes care of administrative, financial, and legal aspects, enabling the program to receive tax benefits. This collaboration offers a simple and cost-effective way for programs to operate under the guidance of an established charitable organization.
Problem
A critical need for transparency and control in fiscal sponsorship
Today, sponsors who oversee programs, struggle with manual, labor-intensive fund management, draining resources from nonprofits. The lack of transparency in this process hinders their control over connected bank accounts, complicating financial reconciliation.
Impact
85%
of new deposits onto Ribbon are contributed to the new sponsor banking feature
100%
Automated banking set up
30%
Increase in Sponsor operational efficiency
DESIGN PROCESS
Discovery
Customers expressed frustration with fund management in Ribbon
As the Ribbon product began to grow, our Head of Product consistently received feedback from current and prospective customers about the difficulties of fund management. The original setup of Ribbon included two disconnected systems requiring manual setup by a Ribbon and sponsor admin. Additionally, for sponsors to designate funds to programs, they needed to send money out of their bank account and into Ribbon, resulting in delays and lost opportunities for interest and investments. This frustrated our sponsor users.
Original Set Up
From various customer interviews, we identified that sponsors desperately needed to manage and link accounts on their own within Ribbon. Moreover, they desired the ability to display total program funds without physically moving these funds from their bank accounts to the Ribbon issuing account. This enables them to keep more money in their accounts and capitalize on opportunities such as earning interest or making investments using their external accounts.
Based on these insights, four jobs to be done were crafted:
As a sponsor, I need to easily connect, update, and add/remove bank accounts independently, so that I can have control and visibility over my externally connected accounts.
As a sponsor, I need to efficiently assign specific bank accounts to designated programs, so that I can manage, track, and organize funds across all my programs and their associated bank accounts.
As a sponsor, I need to keep as much of my funds in my external bank account, so that I can take advantage of financial offers (interest and investments) without all my money being locked up in Ribbon.
As a sponsor, I need to allocate funds within my connected external accounts on Ribbon, so I can monitor and track finances without the need for funds to leave my account.
Desired Outcome
DESIGN PROCESS
Exploration
We kicked off exploration with initial designs across various pages under existing sections
To start the design process we began exploring how the individual problems could be solved in the existing information architecture within Ribbon’s platform. This meant exploring designs across various separate pages in the application. The three main pages we explored were: connected accounts, bank reporting, and program assignments.
DESIGN PROCESS
The Pivot
Feedback and usability concerns lead to a consolidated version of our new banking features
After reviewing the separate pages with stakeholders and customers, we decided that we needed a simpler more connected view for the related banking tasks. In doing so, the various pages became a new single, user-friendly page, under a new top-level navigation “Banking”, which enhanced navigation, reduced task time, and improved comprehension in users.
Consolidated Banking Overview Page
DESIGN PROCESS
Iterations
After the MVP launch, iterative improvements were made to further optimize this feature
The MVP features were developed and launched, focusing on improved visibility, streamlined processes, and enhanced user experience. One particular piece of feedback we received was the annoyance of scrolling the entire page. This feedback lead us to move forward with a tab approach. The initial long scroll of transactions, allocations, and program balances was transformed into 3 separate tabs, providing a more organized and intuitive interface.
FINAL PRODUCT
Real-Time Banking Services
FINAL PRODUCT
Bank account balance views
The total balance of funds across all programs. This includes funds from your Ribbon Issuing account as well as any connected bank accounts.
Issuing accounts hold program funds that programs can use with their Ribbon cards.
FINAL PRODUCT
Allocate funds to selected programs on Ribbon
Once you have connected an account, the Account Activity table shows the banking transactions from all your externally connected accounts. You can click on a transaction to allocate some or all of the funds to an associated program.
FINAL PRODUCT
Connect to external bank accounts
Connect any bank account to Ribbon. Connected accounts show the current available balance, and the amount that is allocated to the Sponsor vs the Program.
You can click on any account to see a breakdown of the account funds.
FINAL PRODUCT
Easily view all of your program balances
Program Funds lists all of your programs and the balances each of them has in each account they are associated with.
Bonus
Design system migration to Figma
During my six months on this project, I was not only able to migrate the team onto Figma from Sketch, and create a new robust design system that more accurately matched code, but I was also able to take advantage of Figma’s newest features such as variables, component properties, auto layout 4.0, etc. to dramatically increase the speed and efficiency we were building at.
Results
Sponsor Empowerment, Reduced Support Cost, Increased efficiency
85%
of new deposits onto Ribbon are contributed to the new sponsor banking feature
100%
Automated banking set up
30%
Increase in Sponsor operational efficiency
Take Aways
Agile Mindset:
Understanding and implementing agile methodologies was a core principle for my team and I. To move quickly and stay on track, we had to be strategic about how we were building and what features were most essential. By allowing for phased design work and flexibility, we could respond efficiently to changing needs and customer feedback as we progressed.
User-Centric Approach:
Regular check-ins with customers and stakeholders were crucial for keeping user and business goals at the focus, ensuring that feedback was consistently incorporated throughout the design process.
Communication and Context:
Over-communicating and providing extra contextual help, especially during the introduction of a new feature, were essential in user adoption. Because this is a brand-new product in the market, we had to ensure it could be easily understood and learned by our users. An additional “beta” banner was placed on the page to provide transparency with our users and encourage feedback as we rolled out the new feature.