The Need:
Over the past few years, we have formed a great partnership with the Community Foundation for Northeast Georgia (CFNEG), working with the organization to help refine and refresh its brand and to design its annual giving report and other marketing materials. In 2017, Executive Director Randy Redner and the staff, along with their board of directors, came to us with their next big project – a new website.
The old website was quite outdated, making it difficult to update as well as navigate. The team needed a website that would serve as the digital storefront of the CFNEG so donors, advisors, nonprofits and community members could find the information they need to connect with the right people at the right time, and ultimately become the organization’s online resource for attracting and connecting with donors, supporting nonprofits with events and funding, as well as supporting professional financial advisors and informing the community. Our goal with this website was to build tools that would help the organization achieve the goals the leadership team had for the site as well plan for future online technology additions, all while ensuring the site would be user-friendly, represent the look of the brand, and actively communicate the organization’s values.
How We Did It:
We began the process with a Creative Kickoff Meeting that included the RPS creative team, as well as key decision makers from the CFNEG. In this meeting, we reviewed the key features the new website would need and content to ensure all items were in place for the first round of development. We also reviewed the sitemap, types of content still to be collected from the client and to be created, and what the website needed to do for the organization.
From there, the CFNEG was responsible for providing the content still needed so we could make sure to plan for these types of content for the various modular elements that would potentially be needed for the site. This would ensure that the interior pages would have a nice flow with the types of content that would need to be displayed.
Next, we began discussing website styles with Randy and his team. Randy had sent lots of website examples so we could gain a better idea of features he liked and did not like. We also created a detailed flowchart to help everyone better understand the flow of the content since we were building a very robust site that would be added to in phases. With that in hand, we began researching for further inspiration and developed some website styles for review and discussion with the CFNEG team.
After receiving their feedback, we made revisions to their preferred designs and presented these refinements. We then began a final design based on the CFNEG’s preferred style and created a layout for the homepage, a modular content page, a profile for fundholders and nonprofits, and blog pages.
With all design aspects of the site finalized and approved, we turned everything over to our web development partner, Unity Digital Agency. Their team worked to program graphics, navigation, forms, and the requested plug-ins for the site. Website framework programming was also completed, which included a Content Management System and a visual page-building tool that would allow the CFNEG team to maintain all website copy and selected images.
Once Unity Digital Agency completed their work, the website was handed over to RPS for content insertion and testing. Our team handled the input of text and images for the pages outlined on the website, and also created a few calendar events, new posts, and profiles, each for training purposes so that the CFNEG team would be well-equipped to insert the remaining balance of text and images once we handed the website over to them. We also performed testing on the website, including cross-browser testing to ensure the site would perform well on all browsers.
After testing was completed, we transferred the CFNEG website from the development server to its hosting platform and made it live.
The Result:
The organization now has a beautiful website that clearly communicates what the CFNEG is and what the organization does. Visitors can quickly find the information they need and any next steps they need to take for opening a fund, discovering ways to give, and resources for nonprofits and advisors. The website is easy for the CFNEG team to update and maintain, allowing them to make more timely updates and ensure they are providing the most current and accurate information that fundholders, philanthropists, and other visitors need.
