Freeing land for sustainable farmers one square meter at a time with a brand new crowdfunding platform

Almost 50% of the Netherlands is being used for agricultural purposes. Unfortunately, not all of them use their land in a sustainable way, resulting in the need for artificial manure, tons of carbon dioxide and and a loss in biodiversity. BD Grondbeheer is a non profit organisation that frees up land for farmers that want to do things differently. By gathering donations from people all over the Netherlands, they buy land to make sure it can only be used by farmers with a sustainable way of farming. We got to be part of their amazing journey towards a new brand and platform.

Een meisje die een koe knuffelt

Creating bold and modern brand based on three principles

After multiple meetings we had the basic wireframe for the platform, and it was time to add some life to it. During a brainstorm with the (amazing) members of BD Grondbeheer we concluded that there are three basic principles at play in their brand. The land, the animals, and the people. Using these elements we created multiple logo proposals with many different color schemes. After some amazing synergy between designer and client an unanimous decision was reached; bold colours and a modern logo. A new face for BD that will carry them for many years to come.

A brand new platform with a playful design system

Hundreds of visitors hit the BD website every day, with ages between 16 and 86. It was important to show BDs transparency, reliability and mostly, their passion for sustainable farming on the website. The main purpose of the site is to promote crowdfunding-style campaigns, introduce sustainable farmers and gather as many donations as possible to free up more land. The result is a modern looking website with bold call to actions. All the tricky payment systems are handled under the hood and only shown when necessary.

Integrating Mollie so visitors can pay with one simple click

To make the donation as easy as possible for visitors, we decided to partner with Mollie and use their API to create single and recurring payments. BD has plenty of different payment and donation strategies, some with complex forms and others which produce specific PDF certificates. It was our job to automate all of it, so the people at BD can focus on what's most important: spreading the word, and gathering more followers for their amazing cause.

On-brand email campaigns with personalisation ánd automation.

BD already has thousands of followers, and we want to be able to send them an email they want to read. That's why we've worked on their campaign strategy, and the way they present news to the world. To handle email and CRM we partnered with Active Campaign, and used their API to segment users, add tags and automated mailings about subjects like payment status.

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Since the launch, we've remained closely partnered with BD, doing bi-weekly meetings and strategy sessions to help improve their campaigns. We've since added an AB testing system and have implemented many new features.

Branding

Harm van der Burgt

UX/UI Design

Harm van der Burgt

Web Development

Marcel Klein Legtenberg

Project management

The Plant