During the CXO day at Drupalcamp London, Dave O’Carroll the Head of Digital at War Child delivered a compelling speech on how Drupal has aided their mission in supporting the future and well-being of children living in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones.
When Warchild UK began to feel their website could no longer facilitate their day to day needs they began to consider a Drupal rebuild or even using an alternative technology. The existing Drupal platform was unfriendly towards images and so couldn’t reflect their work on the ground in its true light. Being unresponsive was also a major issue for the site.
After conducting research and consulting with peers, War Child UK came to the conclusion that Drupal still remained far above the rest in aiding the charity to continue their work and simply needed an update to meet their evolving needs.
When the time came for us to replace our website we were open to using different systems. But it soon became obvious that Drupal would remain the right choice
Dave O'Carroll
When making the decision to stay with Drupal, 4 key areas were turning points in confirming their decision.
1. Compatibility
War Child UK are acutely aware of the world of software solutions out there. Despite the natural desire to focus on having an aesthetically pleasing website, the websites ability to seamlessly take on integrations like MailChimp, Stripe, and SalesForce was deemed essential. As most of these software APIs and plugins are Drupal friendly, sticking with Drupal in this regard was a no-brainer.
The team at War Child UK dedicate themselves to changing the lives of children and spending as much time and money out on the field as possible. Being a charity, they also have to provide a great deal of accountability on where their money comes from and where it goes, so investment in digital can be incredibly difficult to justify. But by using Drupal, its compatible nature means the charity can spend more resources on helping children, not conducting systems integrations.
Having done this many times before, I knew the best websites are the ones that play nice with the other children - they integrate well.
Dave O'Carroll
2. Ease of use
War Child needed to give content creators the independence to upload their own stories so their messages could be told from the heart, and not dilluted by multiple teams. If they were able to train staff to directly upload content, War Child's work would be able to be projected in near real time.
Dave explained, with previous experience of Wordpress and Squarespace at other charities he had found the staff would receive training but come back repeatedly to clarify how to perform daily tasks. The simple intuitive administration screens we configured for War Child meant that, with Drupal, staff needed to be shown just once. This saves War Child time, and time saves money.
Our HR team, who don’t spring to mind as digital experts, are able to manage their own site section. It’s great they are able to have a degree of freedom.
Dave O'Carroll
3. Support
The flexibility of Drupal provides support for all of War Child’s goals. War Child needs to be more flexible and creative to stand alongside larger charities with far bigger communications teams and marketing resource. The vast community surrounding Drupal means that no matter how improbable an idea appears to be, the community always manages to push up gems to make an idea reality.
With a big fat creative idea, there always seems to be a way to do it with Drupal
Dave O'Carroll
4. Future Proofing
What if I get hit by a bus? A concerning idea, but something that applies to War Child UK immensely. With thousands of children relying on the charity, they can't afford to not plan for the ‘what ifs’. Drupal's intuitive CMS already makes it easy to pick up where the last person left off. We crafted a solution to take this capability further and built a system to the best possible standards. This stronger governance means if War Child ever need to move agencies, replace key team members or work with freelancers the continuity will still be there and save them time and money, allowing War Child to focus on their mission.
Conclusion
All too often children are portrayed as the collateral damage of war. War Child wanted their site to portray a different story and so we implemented designs that placed children at the heart of the new website, you can read the full website case study here. The new platform allows War Child to overcome past restraints and think outside the box for future campaigns. We look forward to continuing to help those at War Child to support children in new innovative ways for years to come. One of their recent campaigns ‘Robot’ has been particularly moving, please watch the video below.
