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Message ‘Tag Your Bag’ Donation Process Oxfam International is known for its global efforts to improve education, health care, sustainable livelihoods, and disaster recovery. Vital to Oxfam GB’s ability to provide aid are the funds it receives from donations and the sale of secondhand items in its retail stores. The UK government recently began offering 25 percent tax relief on charitable donations made by UK taxpayers through a program called Gift Aid. This tax relief extends to the sales of goods donated to charity shops like Oxfam’s. Recognizing this as an opportunity to increase its funds, Oxfam GB approached IDEO to design ways in which the organization could increase the number of people signing up for the Gift Aid program. The project focused on three areas: in-store awareness of the Gift Aid program, in-store sign-up experience, and connecting donor information to donated goods for tax relief. The result was an innovative ‘Tag Your Bag’ design that contributed to revenue growth of £2.8m a year. The extra income is equivalent to the amount needed to fund Oxfam’s entire aid program in Malawi, which helped 150,000 people in 2012. To understand the challenges of the donation process and the in-store behaviors of donors and volunteers, members of the IDEO project team first became Oxfam volunteers in two London stores. This immersion in the donation journey, from drop-off to sorting and pricing, provided the key insights needed to create an innovative communication, space, and process design in response to the new government policy. During their time in-store, the team observed that donor behavior differs from shopper behavior in three major ways: + Donors are keen to drop off their donations with limited fuss and then dash out of the store + Donors don’t have time to fill in the necessary forms for tax relief + Donors were unsure where to put donations and didn’t want to ask staff As a result of these human-centered research insights, designers turned their attention to drop-offs rather than sign-ups and looked for new ways to integrate sign-ups into the donation process. The team then built a prototype Oxfam shop in the basement of the IDEO London studio to iterate and test a variety of ideas, continually collecting feedback from the client, designers, Oxfam volunteers, and donors. The final design concept—‘Tag Your Bag’—offers an obvious, simple, and integrated solution for donors that is still easy and flexible for staff members. The ‘Tag Your Bag’ design solution builds on existing “drop and dash” donor behavior by providing people with a pack of tags upon sign-up. Once tagged, a bag of donations can be dropped off quickly with little in-store interaction needed. In addition to simplifying the donation process, the tags also serve as subtle household reminders to clean out wardrobes and donate used items. Oxfam’s in-house team then further developed and implemented IDEO’s design solution, initially launching ‘Tag Your Bag’ in one Oxfam store, then 12 Oxfam stores, before rolling out across all UK Oxfam stores. By launching in a small way before scaling up, the organization was able to continue learning and iterating the design solution over time. http://www.ideo.com/work/tag-your-bag-donation-process