Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF): Drupal Powered Unified Donation Experience

A Drupal-based donation and information platform for humanitarian causes

MSF Case Study header image

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/ Doctors Without Borders is an international, independent medical humanitarian organization. Founded by journalists in 1971, it is now a global team of over 65,000 members dedicated to delivering medical care where it is needed most. As well as supplying humanitarian medical work, MSF produces important research on vulnerable communities to assist with driving positive change in how specific diseases are treated.

  • Need: Replace aging Drupal 7 platform, unify donation and information experiences, and enable fast editorial publishing in Arabic and English.
  • Solution: Drupal 9 rebuild with integrated donations, improved IA and editorial tooling, multilingual publishing, and upgraded hosting foundations.
  • Core building blocks: Varbase implementation, multilingual (Arabic/English), SEO foundations, performance and security checklists, and accessibility target (WCAG 2.0 AA). 

+61%

Increase in Unique Pageviews

+12.36%

Increase in Time on Page

+82.23%

Increase in Page Value
Intuitive UX/UI preview for MSF Drupal 9 website

What we built 

  1. One Drupal platform for donations + information

We brought donations into the CMS, so the donation journey and the content journey lived in the same place.

  • Integrated a native Drupal donation system with multi-currency support.
  • Built the donation experience on Drupal Commerce, so MSF can manage donation pages and keep an exportable donor database.
     

  1. Editorial speed with governance

MSF needed day-to-day control without losing structure.

  • Layout Builder for drag-and-drop page creation.
  • Content operations controls, including revision control, taxonomy-driven organization, granular permissions, plus controls for URLs and meta tags.
     

  1. Information architecture built for discoverability

We reorganized the content structure to support clearer visitor paths and stronger indexing relevance.

  • Improved IA to increase discoverability across navigation and content surfaces.
  • Implemented Apache Solr for full-text search and filtering.
     

  1. Multilingual publishing that holds layouts together

MSF required a bilingual experience that stays consistent.

  • Translation capabilities aligned with Layout Builder, supporting Arabic and English while keeping templates intact.

Modernization foundations

Drupal 7 to Drupal 9, with URLs retained

The engagement was defined as an upgrade path from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8/9, delivered as a Drupal 9 rebuild, with the same URL retained.

Baselines for security, performance, accessibility, and SEO 

  • Security: SSL enabled, IP login restriction, standard security checklist
  • Performance: Cloudflare enabled, standard performance checklist
  • Accessibility target: WCAG 2.0 AA
  • SEO foundations: headings and markup implementation, sitemap generation, on-site SEO checklist

Hosting uplift for financial transactions

Modernization included moving off non-Drupal-compatible hosting and upgrading to OVHcloud, positioned to support stronger performance and security compliance needs for a donations site.

 

 

Key capabilities delivered
 

   1. Donations + information unification

  • Donations inside the CMS using Drupal Commerce
  • Multi-currency donation support

  • MSF-managed donation pages and donor data export

     

   2. Editorial independence 

  • Layout Builder drag-and-drop pages
  • Drafts and unpublished workflows
  • Revisioning, taxonomy, granular permissions
  • URL and meta tag controls

     

    3. Future-proof modernization

  • Drupal 9 rebuild aligned to the Drupal 7 upgrade program

  • Security, performance, accessibility, and SEO are baked into delivery requirements
Intuitive UX/UI preview for MSF Drupal 9 website

Why did this work?

  • We started with a site audit, then aligned the rebuild around operational bottlenecks like separate donations, editorial dependency, and performance constraints.
  • We built for editor autonomy, so publishing and iteration can happen without niche technical skills.
  • We set institutional-grade foundations for security, performance, accessibility, and SEO so the platform can evolve safely after launch.
MSF gives Vardot 5 stars in Clutch

“I’m impressed by their fast response, commitment to our mission, and their continuous reliable, and efficient support through the process.”
- Rasha M. Ahmed, Communications Manager, MSF

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