The Digital Donor Experience takes a fresh approach to the standard donor wall, helping visitors to better understand African American philanthropy through interactive data visualizations and curated content.

NMAAHC‘s Digital Donor Experience celebrates African American philanthropy through a digital “quilt” that places all levels of giving as integral to the collective whole. We worked closely with advancement and exhibit teams to create an interactive, data-driven donor wall that is engaging, meaningful, and lets donors be the heroes of the story.

Our vision for the donor wall focuses on how the collective giving of a myriad of unique donors coalesces into a strong, resilient, and powerfully enabling fabric of support – the Donor Quilt. This is a metaphor that expresses the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts. It is simultaneously a layout mechanism, a means of navigation, a data visualization system, and a visual treatment that evokes a literal patchwork of individuals coming together to form a unified network.

We designed an interface that invites interaction, rewards exploration, and showcases donors in a highly unique way, all while digitally bringing to life the central idea of individual donations coming together to create a powerful network of support.

The user interface caters to browsing as well as searching, inspiring visitors to contribute to the museum’s mission.

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Our approach considers two audiences – donors, and those who have yet to donate. The former are proud of their contributions and want to feel recognized; we look to convince the latter of the importance of philanthropy. The digital donor wall inspires both audiences to donate, whether for the first time or with an additional gift.

Designed in collaboration with our good friends at Belle & Wissell, who provided design leadership, NMAAHC’s internal exhibit + development teams, Electrosonic a/v integration and Explus, Inc. fabrication.

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