The HALO Trust: Supporting global fundraising, advocacy and supporter engagement through a new digital platform

The HALO Trust is the world's largest humanitarian mine clearance organisation, working across more than 30 countries and territories to save lives, restore land and support communities affected by conflict. 

Nexer Digital partnered with HALO to redesign and rebuild its primary website, creating a platform that strengthens supporter engagement, improves fundraising journeys and gives global teams greater flexibility to manage content across regions.

As part of a wider digital transformation programme, The HALO Trust wanted its website to play a bigger role in helping people understand its mission, support fundraising activity and engage with campaigns. 

The organisation had ambitious objectives to increase online donations, encourage more ongoing and unrestricted giving, and improve the visibility of its fundraising activity. It also wanted to create clearer pathways for people to learn about its work, support campaigns and take action. 

Discovery workshops and stakeholder engagement revealed several challenges limiting the effectiveness of the existing platform. User journeys were inconsistent, content quality varied across the site and navigation made it difficult for visitors to find relevant information. Internal teams faced governance and content management challenges, while the existing CMS limited flexibility and made content publishing more complex than it needed to be. 

As a global organisation, HALO also needed to balance consistent brand and content governance with the requirements of regional teams across the UK, US and Ukraine. 

We began with a comprehensive discovery phase involving stakeholders across fundraising, marketing, communications, digital, content and leadership teams. 

Our research activities included: 

• Vision and goals workshops 

• Stakeholder interviews 

• Process mapping 

• User research 

• Information architecture development 

• Prototype testing 

• Accessibility planning 

• Analysis of international content requirements 

User research was conducted with current and prospective donors from both the UK and US, including in-depth donor interviews and prototype testing. 

The research highlighted the importance of clearly demonstrating the impact of HALO's work. Participants wanted simpler donation journeys, stronger storytelling and easier access to campaign and programme information. The findings also revealed opportunities to improve content discovery, navigation and supporter engagement journeys. 

These insights became the foundation for the site's structure, content strategy and user experience. 

Working alongside HALO and brand partner Dragon Rouge, Nexer Digital designed and developed a new website focused on supporter engagement, fundraising and long-term sustainability.

The redesigned experience places greater emphasis on donation journeys, fundraising campaigns and impact storytelling, helping visitors understand the difference HALO's work makes and making it easier to take action.

Key improvements included:

• Simplified navigation and information architecture
• More prominent donation and fundraising journeys
• Increased visibility of impact stories and programme content
• Improved content discovery and related content pathways
• Better accessibility and usability
• Enhanced support for regional audiences
• A more flexible content management experience

The platform was built using Umbraco 17 and designed to support both global and regional content requirements. Shared content can be managed centrally and reused across multiple regions where appropriate, while local teams can create and manage content tailored to their own audiences, fundraising priorities and campaigns.

To support HALO's global content operation, we introduced a structured content model, reusable components, standardised templates, taxonomy frameworks and clear ownership processes. Together, these improvements help reduce duplication, improve consistency and make content easier to manage across regions.

The implementation also included Umbraco's Block Grid editor with custom block previews, providing content editors with a more visual and intuitive editing experience.

Accessibility was embedded throughout the project from the outset. Requirements were defined early and carried through design, development and testing to create an inclusive experience aligned with WCAG 2.2 AA standards.

Alongside the platform implementation, we delivered CMS training and knowledge transfer sessions, ensuring internal teams were confident managing content, campaigns and regional variations independently.

The HALO Trust now has a modern digital platform that provides a stronger foundation for fundraising, advocacy and supporter engagement.

The redesigned website helps visitors understand the scale of HALO's work, discover campaigns and programmes more easily, and take action through clearer donation and engagement journeys.

For users, the new platform delivers:

• Clearer pathways to donate and support HALO's work
• Improved access to campaign and programme information
• Better content discovery
• A more accessible user experience
• Greater visibility of impact and success stories

For internal teams, the platform provides:

• More effective content governance
• Faster publishing workflows
• Better support for regional content management
• Greater flexibility for campaign delivery
• Improved consistency across global and regional content
• A scalable foundation for future digital development