As part of their continued effort to support local charities, Toronto-based Ariad recently completed work with Free The Children, is an international charity and educational partner, working both domestically and internationally to empower youth as agents of change.
Ariad developed and produced a social platform called We365 on behalf of Free The Children and TELUS. It was then launched at We Day on October 18, 2013. In addition to tracking their volunteer hours, young Canadians have been using the app to rally friends around specific campaigns, post challenges and celebrate their successes. To date, more than 50,000 challenges have been completed and young people have submitted more than 37,000 posts about their fundraising and volunteering activities. The platform also helped to generate over 35,000 downloads and more than 16,000 volunteer hours tracked in just three months
Tomash Devenishek, Product Director, Ariad, led the development of We365 for Ariad and Free The Children. He adds: “When it came to developing We365 we knew we had to support our audience’s desire to be social, and also be genuinely useful and provide real value for their fundraising and volunteering. So we focused first on understanding the needs of Canada’s youth when it comes to causes and their online behaviour.”
Ariad’s strategy, creative and technology teams also worked on the project to marry meaningful content with relevant technology in a format that would appeal to young users. The mobile and web-based platform is fully integrated with Facebook and Twitter creating a totally seamless digital experience.