What are personas and why you need them

Creating positive change through your charitable mission requires a deep understanding of the people you aim to support. Personas, when backed up by research from your users, turn your existing insights and data into relatable narratives that can promote empathy, increase awareness of your different users, inform design and communication decisions, and support your overall strategy.  

What are personas? 

Personas are fictional but detailed and representative ‘profiles’ of your users created to bring to life their characteristics, needs, and behaviours. A persona, typically a one-page document depicting a single person, but that person is not a real individual, it is created from observations of many people. It provides a human-like snapshot of relevant and meaningful commonalities in your user groups, based on user research. 

Personas have been around since the 1990’s and have typically been used for marketing purposes, created using surface-level demographics and characteristics, however personas can be much more than that. A good persona is needs-based and delves into the behavioural and emotional aspects of user experiences. They prioritise understanding users' goals, challenges, motivations, and values, establishing a better connection between your charity and your audiences. 

In our handy template, you’ll find a simple example of what a persona looks like,