Digital signage: The evolution of digital donor walls

by all | 19 February 2021 9:46 am

By Mark Mantha and Chris Murdy

The healthcare sector has seen great progress in the digital space recently with the advancement of digital donor recognition walls. The static impersonal brass plaques that have become so dated for the times, are being replaced with attractive and engaging dynamic walls. Simply put, digital donor walls make sense on so many fronts, ranging from the simplified update process to an improved experience.

Donor walls visually engage and connect visitors with the mission and vision of the hospital foundation, a particular campaign or reason for the donations and, most importantly, encourage the donors by displaying their names in a commemorative way. Charitable donations are more of a challenge than ever before with varying tax laws let alone a global pandemic. Reaching donors on a personal level and recognizing their efforts and story in real-time is critical to any hospital foundation. Digital recognition walls have also become a vehicle for employee recognition and anniversary dates to celebrate.

From a branding perspective, digital donor walls have become an effective on-premise tool for educating and enlightening visitors, employees, and donors as to the corporate strategy and goals of a hospital foundation, as well as its history, all geared to increase donations and loyal contributors.

A great example is Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC) in Toronto, which has one of the largest and most complex digital donor recognition walls in Canada—in fact, it is a model for many other hospitals to aspire to. Envision, a market leader in digital donor walls and, more generally, digital experiences, was engaged by Sunnybrook to design, build, and install its new donor recognition wall.

The goal of the Sunnybrook Foundation was to create a dynamic and memorable experience that is uniquely differentiated and conveys donor impact through engaging content that would serve as a showcase of innovation for the hospital. The donor wall is differentiated through design by the creative use of physical shapes and form, as well as the close attention paid to the use of colour and light and how it works in the space. The combination of technology used allows visitors to be passive viewers, or to interact at their own pace using the interactive screens. Mood is achieved through enhanced, emotion-driven storytelling and donor listings that the foundation can update and edit.

A massive growth market

Digital donor walls have become a massive growth area because the costs associated with updating traditional static name recognition pieces, often in high-end materials to reflect gratitude, are extremely high. The labour expenses alone can be never ending, having to hire a crew to remove, replace, or add any donors. A massively reduced time-to-recognize-donors is key to the modern foundation. In some cases, a foundation may need to wait weeks or even months—depending on the materials—to arrange the addition or replacement of a donor name on a physical wall. Digital allows hospitals to recognize a donor in minutes.

Moving recognition to digital platforms gives foundations the ability to recognize gifts in real time; a combination of unattended kiosk donations and a digital donor recognition wall gives a hospital foundation the ability to immediately recognize a donation as it is made. Sunnybrook installed a double-sided tap payment device within 4.6 m (15 ft) of the donor wall to allow the potential to have the main wall celebrate even small donations immediately and gamify the experience of donating.

“Any institution that relies on donations to maintain and grow operations should consider switching from static donor walls to digital walls, whether direct view LED (light-emitting diode) or large LCD (liquid-crystal display) as these walls allow for much more detail on programs, events, and donors themselves,” said Dot2Dot Communications’ general manager Andy McRae. “Integration with various triggers and even a payment portal can make them interactive. The ROI (return on investment) will be impressive. We are seeing these digital walls deployed beyond hospitals, too. Universities and arts centres are using these digital donor walls as well.”

Some may think early digital donor recognition walls were basically a PowerPoint presentation; however, this is not the case. Like any digital signage deployment, it is about custom creative and the ability to change content on the fly via a content management system (CMS) in alignment with the goals and objectives of the network. Using PowerPoint is an accident waiting to happen. Having experiential design, content strategy, software development, content capture, and motion graphics teams to build out these more complex experiences is paramount.

A content strategy is mission critical

What will define success? Messaging must be tailored to drive relevant behaviour, a.k.a. the call to action. Defining business goals and user needs is the content bridge that will lend itself to success. Bringing all key stakeholders to the table is a must in addition to having a clear road map established. This can sometimes be challenging in the unique health-care environment, where facilities, foundations, and the hospital’s own branding teams will be lobbying for airtime.

Hospitals have found digital donor walls to be a viable investment because of the impact, ROI, and limited physical wall space to expand. A large array of bright colourful displays will always get more attention than an understated brass or wooden physical fixture. Often, however, a hybrid approach, recognizing big or naming rights donors who will not change (in high-end materials) remains a ‘static’ constant. This can be complimentary and even add to the allure of the digital component and vice-versa.

Digital donor walls offer the opportunity to integrate directly into the hospitals’ donor management software to build integrations that allow them to define directly in the databases they work in every day which donors should be recognized and where. This efficiency is critical for time management as foundations do not want to manage multiple donor lists when they work in one every day.

New opportunities abound for donor walls

It is something new for foundations to ‘sell.’ Now, foundations can solicit gifts for digital and physical separately, offer both for larger gifts, and produce donor stories or short films on the impact of their donations. Digital displays will open a lot of doors and provide the opportunity to keep the stories fresh. There is nothing worse than reading a great donor impact story that was set in bronze in 1970 in a hospital where the messaging has changed. There are new ways to tell stories and grab attention and eyeballs.

Interactive donor walls are adding another layer of engagement in hospitals. The ability to self-educate, along with feeling empowered and welcomed, lends itself to employee, visitor, and donor satisfaction. In turn, branding and philanthropy wins. The interactivity component provides the ability to understand the ties between the foundation, donors, events, and the community, while at the same time, providing an authentic sense of ownership.

The completion of digital donor walls is often well received and proves beneficial to staff and patient morale—even moving some to tears—while honouring the generosity of donors in a way that encourages further donations. This has been specifically powerful during the pandemic as many hospitals have used the massive and vivid canvas to recognize their local heroes, such as nurses, doctors, and volunteers.

One might think interactive donor walls would be much more expensive than a standard donor wall; however, they are not. Yes, there are landed costs associated with the technologies deployed and installation, but the cost and labour savings from buying new nameplates and plaques each time the wall needs to be updated is huge. Over time, interactive donor walls prove to be extremely cost-effective and provide a unique opportunity to engage with the public in new ways.

Hospitals are not exactly a ‘feel good’ environment; however, digital donor walls provide a great diversion and cause on so many fronts. Visual is our new language as everyone is drawn to it.

Noted author Paco Underhill suggests: “Our visual language is evolving faster than our spoken words. We process images faster and it is a single language. The value of digital signage does not decline but increases over time when the content messaging is refined.”

A versatile medium

Digital donor walls not only allow foundations to switch out content on the fly for seasonal campaigns, etc., but can also be used for emergency evacuation routes and even wayfinding within the hospital to complement an existing digital signage network serving similar content.

The world has changed dramatically as a result of the global pandemic and, in turn, philanthropy will alter its course as well. Hospital foundations would be best served to use any means possible to maintain their base of donors and find new ones in very challenging times. Certainly, digital donor walls should be recognized as a powerful and cost- effective tool to accomplish these goals and engage a new generation of donor, possibly digital native but existing in the modern digital landscape.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also changing the world and how one engages with content on many fronts. This technology will certainly impact the digital donor space, too. Understanding and gaining insights into one’s audience is very powerful for fundraising initiatives. By measuring donor behaviour, communications, and giving profile, AI can assist in understanding so much more like what campaigns are of interest, what levels of donation to ask for, and what content is of interest to the audience.

The value to a foundation to understand their existing and potential donors at this level cannot be overstated. By adding analytics and dynamic decision-making tools to their toolbox, many foundations are throwing the traditional concept of ROI out the window as a result of incorporating a digital donor wall.

Mark Mantha, president of Man-Mac Consulting Inc., provides market development consulting for Envision, which delivers branded environments, digital experiences, and data solutions for a number of global brands. He can be reached via email at mark@manmacconsulting.ca[6].

As director of technology at Envision, Chris Murdy is currently leading the technology group where he is responsible for guiding all external digital projects, as well as the company’s internal technical infrastructure. Overseeing technical operations, managing a team of IT employees, identifying and eliminating security risks, and maintaining operations and systems, Murdy’s has a history of leveraging technical innovation in fields like broadcast, engineering, consultation, and branded environments to bring technical direction and solution architecture to the Envision team. With more than 15 years experience, Murdy’s technical direction, thought leadership, and management of the entire technology portfolio at Envision has been instrumental in the development of donor walls for high-profile clients including Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC), Women’s College, and Mount Sinai, as well as digital display solutions for CIBC Pearson Airport. He can be reached via email at chris.murdy@envision.design[7].

Source URL: https://www.signmedia.ca/digital-signage-the-evolution-of-digital-donor-walls/

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