Revamped UX For Audience Segmentation & Community Engagement

Users often confused the local Bergen County affiliate with the global Habitat organization, which created the risk of donations being misdirected away from the local community.

Additionally, a common misconception was that Habitat “gives away free houses,” when the model is based on affordable homeownership, partner families, required participation and mortgage support.

Most visitors didn’t know what the ReStore was, how donated goods worked or how shopping there connected to affordable housing in Bergen County. A key part of the organization’s funding model had almost no presence on the site.

The previous site was difficult to navigate, fragmented across multiple systems and not structured around the needs of key audiences. Donation, volunteering, ReStore and application flows required too many steps, which increased drop-off and support calls.

Habitat Bergen needed to serve individual donors, corporate donors, volunteers, homeowners, applicants, ReStore shoppers, item donors and referral partners through one site. There was no structure in place to address any of them directly.

The organization needed better local donation pathways that made it clear contributions supported affordable housing in Bergen County.

Users had difficulty finding the right Habitat Bergen and ReStore information through search, especially for intent-driven queries such as “donate furniture,” “volunteer near me” and “cheap furniture.”