Giant Digital X Amnesty International

Introduction

Hello!

The entire Giant Digital team extends our gratitude for the chance to be considered as partners for this project. Amidst numerous agencies offering similar services, we genuinely value the opportunity to present our ideas to you and we look forward to the possibility of working with you.

In 2011, Giant Digital was formed, with a vision to create an agency focused on using powerful digital marketing and technology solutions to drive growth for charitable and ethical organisations.

Giant Digital is B-Corp accredited team of dedicated experts with skills spanning strategy, technology, creative and development. We work in partnership with charities including Help for Heroes, Maggie's, Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Marine Conservation Society.

We couldn't be more excited for the opportunity to work with you on the next phase of your journey.

Case Studies

Over the past decade, we’ve worked on hundreds of projects for a wide-range of charities – large and small. Over this time, we’ve developed a deep understanding of some of the many challenges charities face, and how digital can be used to solve them.

From finding new ways to engage and support beneficiaries, and bringing critical research to life in highly engaging formats, to transformation of physical support centres into a new digital experience, and building one of the industry’s finest donations platforms to help clients increase their income. No matter the ask, it’s likely we can build a solution for it.

To demonstrate our approach, and some of our experience, we’ve hand-picked three client case studies that we’re proud of, and we hope they serve to demonstrate how Giant Digital will be the right partner for Amnesty International UK.

Help for Heroes – A digital transformation journey

Giant Digital initially partnered with Help for Heroes through a website redevelopment project which aimed to tackle several key challenges: improving donor engagement, providing better access to support services for veterans, and enabling scalable digital solutions. The project went through a deep dive discovery process, ensuring the output would simplify user experience, increase donations, and optimise engagement.

These were the results:

increase in regular donations

uplift in “get support” submissions

AAA

accessibility rating for key recovery pages

Following the success of the website redevelopment, we worked with Help for Heroes to conduct audience research and develop a digital platform to address the need for veterans to access personalised support services securely and efficiently. Built in Django & Python with integrations into multiple back offices systems such as JustGo, DotDigital and Eclipse, the resulting Beneficiary Portal provides a single source of truth for veterans, empowering them to engage with rehabilitation services and track their progress in real-time.

The project has been a resounding success, so much so that it has reduced the lead time for beneficiaries receiving support from 3-4 weeks, to 3-4 days. Please pass on a huge thank you to the team for getting us to this major milestone!
Lucy Duncliffe, Digital Recovery Project Manager

After launching the beneficiary portal, we embarked on another new project to develop a digital platform, aimed at giving Help for Heroes’ beneficiaries a tool that would aid faster rehabilitation alongside their face-to-face services. Strive helps veterans recover through training and exercise plans designed specifically for them, and enables Help for Heroes to provide veterans with scalable, ongoing support in their recovery journey.

The way that this project has evolved and has been delivered shows we made the right decision to work with Giant Digital. Given it’s size and the many moving parts, combined with the number of people from different parts of Help for Heroes, the project went beyond smooth in terms of process.
Jamie Walker, Head of Digital Experience

Whizz Kidz

Whizz Kidz partnered with Giant Digital to revamp their website as part of a larger rebranding effort. The goal was to create a more engaging, accessible, and content-led platform that better served their mission of supporting young wheelchair users.

One key challenge was their outdated website, which lacked the ability to effectively reach their audiences, including young people, families, and fundraisers. To overcome this, we created a new site with an intuitive user experience, clear navigation, and a design that aligned with their new branding. Accessibility was a top priority, ensuring the website worked seamlessly for all users, including those with disabilities.

We worked closely with Whizz Kidz’s "Kidz Board"—a group of young wheelchair users—to inform the design, making sure their needs were at the heart of the project. In addition, a detailed SEO audit helped improve the site’s visibility, ensuring it reached more people in need.

The results were outstanding:

reduction in bounce rate

increase in time spent on site

This collaboration resulted in a dynamic, accessible platform that empowers Whizz Kidz to better serve their community while expanding their reach, but don’t just take our word for it, here’s what Whizz Kids had to say about working with Giant.

Whizz Kidz were going through a re-brand, which required a completely new website design. Our existing site also had poor UX and a confusing site structure. The CMS was also poorly supported, meaning it was very difficult to maintain and upgrade our site. Once we were able to secure funding, we sought to put that right by commissioning a new website.

Giant took the time to understand our new brand, our different audiences and our technical requirements. They were happy to spend the time required during the discovery, specification and design phases to ensure the development process was smooth and hit our brief. Our bold new brand was well reflected in the design and the user experience is much improved, meaning users can find what we need.

The functional specification was very well put together and made all the deliverables crystal clear. Giant obviously have a talented development team, as our UAT was incredibly smooth, with minimal bugs. I’ve done a number of new website projects and never had a development process as smooth as this one! We’ve seen some really positive outcomes. One of our main goals was to make our website more engaging, encouraging users to spend longer on our site and visit multiple pages. Post launch, our bounce rate has improved from 75% to 54% and our time on site improved by 19.4%. Initial qualitative user feedback has also been good. Users have found it easier to find the information they’re looking for. We now have a site that is attractive to fundraisers and proudly demonstrates the work we do.
Tony McPartlan, Senior Website & Digital Marketing Manager, Whizz Kidz

Perennial

Perennial, a charity supporting horticulture professionals, partnered with Giant Digital to revamp its website, focusing on engaging new audiences and enhancing user experience. The challenge was to create a site that resonated with their diverse audience groups, including industry professionals, donors, and those in need of help.

Because Perennial serves so many different audiences (9 in total), creating a site that felt both welcoming and accessible was key. An in-depth discovery phase unearthed lots of ideas for how the charity could streamline and modernise its digital presence, captured in a roadmap to inform future development. Some of the key recommendations which we implemented include:

Revised imagery that was more representative of the diverse audiences Perennial serves.
Imbuing Perennial’s new brand identity, creating a more playful and modern look and feel.
Greater storytelling elements to key content such as finance support & donation journeys.
User-friendly Information Architecture, making the site easier and more intuitive to navigate.

By streamlining content, improving navigation, and enhancing accessibility, we ensured the new site was more user-friendly and engaging. As a result, Perennial experienced:

increase in engaged sessions

increase in average engagement time

growth in key audience interest

Design & Project Management Methodology

Design methodology

At Giant Digital, we employ a user-centric, agile approach to design and project management. Our methodology ensures that every digital product we create is functional, accessible, and tailored to the specific needs of our clients. We combine flexibility with a structured project governance process, keeping the project on track while adapting to feedback and changes. Our design methodology typically follows this process;

We begin with a comprehensive discovery phase to understand Amnesty International’s Knowledge Hub goals, target audiences, and functional requirements. Through stakeholder interviews, user research and information architecture workshops, alongside user journey mapping, we will establish a framework that aligns the Knowledge Hub’s structure with user needs. During this phase, we will also explore options to enhance the Knowledge Hub with advanced search capabilities, including those powered by Natural Language Processing (NLP), Large Language Models (LLMs), and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAGs) technology, to ensure users can efficiently access relevant content.
Our design process starts with low-fidelity wireframes to outline the Knowledge Hub’s structure and user flow. We advance to high-fidelity prototypes, incorporating Amnesty’s branding and visual identity, and engage real audiences to test different design options. This iterative approach helps us identify what resonates best with key user groups, refining the Knowledge Hub’s design based on feedback.
Our designs prioritise accessibility and inclusivity, adhering to WCAG 2.2 AA standards and aiming for AAA compliance where feasible. Usability testing with real users ensures that the Knowledge Hub serves a diverse audience effectively, including activists, policymakers, and educators.
Feedback is integrated throughout the discovery and design phases, involving Amnesty International’s stakeholders at every stage. This ensures the Knowledge Hub evolves based on audience needs and aligns with Amnesty’s organisational goals, resulting in an accessible, user-friendly platform.

Project Management Methodology

Our project management approach follows PRINCE2 Agile, which provides a structured yet flexible framework. This enables us to manage changes efficiently while ensuring the project stays aligned with Amnesty’s objectives.

We manage the project using agile sprints, ensuring regular updates and reviews with Amnesty's team. This allows us to deliver work in incremental stages, ensuring that development remains aligned with feedback and expectations throughout the project.

The project will be managed by a dedicated cross-functional team, operating within Giant Digital's Pod structure, led by an experienced Project Manager and Account Manager.

Kelly Appleby

Account Director

Mel Richards

Project Manager

Mel will ensure day to day project delivery in line with agreed timelines and budgets and manage any changes or additional scopes of work, whilst Kelly will ensure consistent communication with Amnesty and oversee day to day account management for the life of the project and beyond.

Your project and account management team will work closely with our senior leadership team throughout the project, a full breakdown of our organisation and roles can be viewed here.

Milestones & Deliverables

We establish clear milestones for each project phase (design, development, testing, and launch), with deliverables tied to specific dates. This ensures that key components of the project are completed on time and that all parties have the opportunity to review and provide feedback at critical stages.

Communication

Regular meetings will be held to review progress and discuss any risks, blockers, or required changes. We use a project management tool called Forecast which employs Kanban boards to help maintain transparency and track project progress, ensuring that everyone is aligned on the status of each task.

Risk Management

Risks are proactively managed using a RAID log (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies). This is regularly updated and your project manager will collaborate with the relevant contacts at Amnesty to address potential challenges early and maintain project momentum.

Post-launch Support

Following the launch, we provide post-launch support to monitor the website’s performance and address any adjustments required. We also offer ongoing maintenance to ensure the website remains secure, functional, and up-to-date.

Project Plan

The project timeline has been structured to facilitate smooth and effective delivery, with key considerations for your stakeholder engagement, resource availability, and content management.

We’ve structured the Knowledge Hub timeline to make the most of the potential economies of scale with the main website project, particularly for frontend and creative elements. This phased approach allows us to apply savings across both projects while ensuring optimal outcomes for each, however if Giant Digital is not appointed for the website project, this plan will still provide ample time for each phase, including liaison with additional suppliers.

The Discovery and Design phase for the Knowledge Hub is aligned to follow on from the website project plan rather than overlap during key stakeholder engagement periods, so Amnesty International UK can focus on each project without multiple review periods crossing over. To ensure optimal progression, we’ll need regular and consistent access to multiple key decision-makers during these months to facilitate both discovery and creative phases.

We’ve aligned the bulk of engineering effort to take place over the summer months, as based on our experience the UK school holidays can result in key stakeholders having limited availability for collaborative working due to annual leave and providing cover for colleagues. By planning the engineering in this way, it allows us to maintain momentum and move forward with technical development while minimising demands on Amnesty International UK’s resources.

Lastly, we’ve allocated an extended period for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and content population for the Knowledge Hub. Based on our experience, content creation and curation can require substantial time and effort. By giving Amnesty International UK early access to the Knowledge Hub, we are ensuring a minimum of six weeks for content creation and curation, with the option for an additional four weeks if the Knowledge Hub launch is scheduled to follow the main website launch by a few weeks. This staggered approach provides the flexibility to launch both platforms together if desired, or to give the website launch a settling period before the Knowledge Hub goes live.

Key Deliverables: Stakeholder interview transcripts, audience research, technical & functional requirements documentation, MoSCoW report

Completion Date: End of May 2025
Key Deliverables: Wireframes, design prototypes, full design assets

Completion Date: Start of August 2025
Key Deliverables: Frontend and backend engineering, infrastructure & database configuration, system integrations, AI/LLM/RAG integrations

Completion Date: Start of October 2025
Key Deliverables: Usability and functional testing, UAT amends

Completion Date: End of October 2025
Key Deliverables: Knowledge Hub access & training, content population

Completion Date: End of January 2026
Key Deliverables: Go/ No-go, launch preparations, go live, post-launch support

Completion Date: Target End of January 2026, contingency Mid-February 2026

Sign-off Process

Our sign-off process ensures that the right stakeholders are actively involved at key milestones. To maintain good governance and create a clear audit trail for sign offs, we will use HelloSign to capture signatures. These sign-offs will be aligned with the relevant stakeholders, informed by the RACI matrix, ensuring the right individuals are responsible and accountable at each stage of the project.

The process diagram below shows the key sign off stages for this project.

Sign-offs will be required after the Discovery and Design phases to confirm agreement on the project’s scope, objectives, and the approved design. These approvals ensure that all parties are aligned before moving forward.

Following the Discovery completion, we will develop the detailed project plan, and sign-off dates for each subsequent phase will be confirmed as part of the output for the Discovery phase.

After Discovery & Design sign offs, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) will act as the next key milestone, giving Amnesty International early access to test the website and provide feedback. This allows for a thorough review of the website’s functionality and performance.

Final sign-off will occur after the UAT and content population phase, ensuring that all content is ready for launch. Once the final content has been populated and approved, the website will be fully prepared to go live, and a joint go/no-go meeting will be held to agree the final sign off for launch.

Post-launch, we will measure and monitor our joint KPIs and as part of a 360 project retrospective, evaluate the website’s performance and identifying any areas for further development or improvement.

Meet The Team

Our team brings together a wealth of cross-sector and charity specialist expertise in digital strategy, design, development, and project delivery to ensure the success of your project. The organisation chart below showcases the full Giant Digital team, with a deeper dive into the individuals who will be directly involved in delivering this project for Amnesty International.

Lalita D'Cruze

Operations Director

Vimal Patel

Managing Director

Jon Atkinson

Technical Director

Alex McGibbon

Innovation Director

Simon Evans

Customer Success Director

Oliver Budworth

Strategy Director