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StrategiQ and Suffolk Mind – Digital transformation

8 min read by Rosie Denny 21 Dec 2022

Suffolk Mind x StrategiQ_Digital_Transformation

Who is Suffolk Mind?

Suffolk Mind is on a mission to make Suffolk the best place in the world for talking about and taking care of mental health. The charity, based in Suffolk, works across the mental health continuum, from wellbeing to ‘severe and enduring’ mental ill-health, providing support & information for everyone.

Challenges

Suffolk Mind is a busy charity with a complex digital presence. Like many organisations, its digital operations and activities are managed over several platforms, which have been built up and added to over the years.

When they reached out to StrategiQ, they had an elearning portal, two websites, a donations platform and an online shop. Together, this created a complex infrastructure that was severely restricting the charity’s ability to raise money, demonstrate impact, and in turn support people with mental health.

The challenge: to get everything in one place, capable of:

  • supporting the charity’s fundraising activities,
  • underpinning a secure, stable ecommerce offering
  • showcasing impact to donors, decision makers and policy makers.

Our strategy


As always, we took time to understand the charity’s needs, their targets, and the resource constraints of their marketing and fundraising teams. Our discovery phase consisted of an in-depth audit of all their existing systems, resulting in a proposal for the board to review.

Experience in the sector

Pulling on a wealth of expertise gained with working on a business transformation project for The Air Ambulance Service, we were able to pitch some seriously impactful KPIs with confidence:

  • Delight and engage users with well presented, navigable content
  • Double monthly page views
  • Deliver flexible CMS (content management system) capabilities to all areas of the website
  • Double the value of average monthly donations
  • Integrate with operational tools e.g. finance and CRM

Tiered approach wins Trustee approval

Mindful of budget constraints, we presented three options for the board’s consideration. Starting with tactical SEO investments to help Suffolk MIND to rank for basic keywords through a complete redesign, rebuild and migration of the fundraising platform.

We were delighted when the board opted for a complete ground-up rebuild, that would enable the charity to benefit from sitewise focus on speed and performance, code-free content management build and development, an enhanced shop and CRM automation and integration.

The result: a YES from the board, and the beginning of one of the most complex web projects in StrategiQ’s history!

“We talked to a number of potential suppliers locally and nationally. We chose StrategiQ because they understood our needs, shared our values and were able to put us in touch with some great reference sites. This was a big project but StrategiQ worked closely with us all the way through to ensure that we went live on time and on budget with a really high quality website. Thank you!”

Linda Phelan
Head of Support Services
Suffolk Mind

A project of passion

The journey to go live was one of testing, learning and of true partnership, with many team members giving up their evenings to populate the content in order to keep the charity’s overheads down. A new career in animation beckoned for key team member, Keiran Buchanan, who even deferred his move to London in order to complete the project.

The new design is sleek and sophisticated, offering a smooth journey through the site. A clear navigation reflects the extensive work carried out at the discovery stage. Answers to questions such as “Who needs support? What with”? Are just clicks away, on mobile, desktop or any other device, and making a donation could not be easier, with straight-through integration to the charity’s CRM and financials.

What will Suffolk Mind achieve from the project?


The site went live in December 2022, and was celebrated with the obligatory launch party at StrategiQ’s offices. Being near Christmas we toasted our partnership with bubbles and mince pies. The feel-good factor is high – but what can Suffolk Mind look forward to in 2023? We look forward to reporting back on those KPIs in a full case study – watch this space!

Members of the StrategiQ team gathered with the Suffolk Mind website project crew to toast the launch of their new site, which went live in December 2022

“StrategiQ is immensely proud of the Suffolk Mind website project, which looks deceptively simple on the surface. The sleek, modern interface represents hours of dedication to addressing the motives behind online searches around ‘mental health’ rather than simply trying to answer the problem.

As the saying goes, the simplest things are often the hardest to get right, but we were determined to deliver great work, and credit to the team for putting their passion into this project.”

Tyler Webb-Harding
Operations Director, StrategiQ

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