About

Mobile App: CharityMiles.org

Charity Miles is an iPhone and Android app that lets you earn cash for one of many global nonprofits when you run, walk or bike. Create an account, choose your preferred method of exercise, then choose your charity from a long list of top-tier organizations such as charity: water, Habitat for Humanity, and Stand Up to Cancer.

The Challenge

Charity Miles had a huge opportunity to grow its audience of users raising funds for great causes. The app had acquired over 60,000 monthly active users in its first years with minimal effort and a small team, proving that this was a product and idea that resonated with users. Charity Miles had data from almost 1 million workouts just waiting to be analyzed and used to inform further growth strategies, but they didn’t know where to start.

What we did

In 2015, Whole Whale worked closely with the Charity Miles team with a focus on building habit loops within the app and increasing monthly/daily active users through notification optimization.

Analytics and Impact Mapping

Whole Whale worked with developers to configure App Boy and Google Analytics for apps to properly track user behavior. This tracking was then used to better segment types of users within the app for messaging optimization.

Social Media Analytics

Whole Whale analyzed the types of social platforms and posts that drove downloads using on and off-platform data to find insights into what was working. Findings were presented monthly in regular insight reports to the team so they could be implemented.

Digital Strategy

After analyzing the data from almost 1 million workouts, we dived into A/B testing within the app, user testing, and content and messaging strategy. We helped build internal systems that will scale as active users increase and helped identify the right digital tools for the team. Some of these systems include moving the Charity Miles team onto a monthly sprint system, moving customer service to ZenDesk, & moving development work into Pivotal Tracker.

Capacity Building

We also helped Charity Miles build internal capacity by hiring and training a community builder and social media strategist. By the end of our first 6 months together, monthly active users had increased by 40% and daily active users by 53%, and this growth shows no signs of slowing.

Testimony