When HDMZ integration specialist Mariana Frentsos went online to get information about after school care for her children, she saw an opportunity. Like many other parents in her community, she enrolls her children in affordable childcare programs through the Greater Gallatin United Way, a nonprofit resource that impacts four Montana counties by offering programs in early learning, youth success, basic needs, and mental health. However, its website was outdated and hard to navigate.
As a digital solutions professional, Mariana knew the importance of a good website to help an organization succeed. She also knew that HDMZ embraces empathy, and is committed to supporting the communities where our employees are based. She also noted that our team was eager to enhance its expertise with the Drupal platform used for the Greater Gallatin United Way’s website. Mariana proposed donating in-kind work to improve the nonprofit’s site, and our leadership shared her enthusiasm for this opportunity.
An outdated website
The HDMZ team worked with the Greater Gallatin United Way to pinpoint areas that needed improvement. The team identified significant challenges with entering and editing content on the website, which posed difficulties for updating schedules and community opportunities. Donation links didn’t always function correctly, creating barriers to giving, which could seriously impact a nonprofit that depends on donations to support its work. And the structure of the website made it difficult for community members to find specific information about programs in which they might be interested.
An unexpected pivot
The original plan was to update and secure the website using Drupal, the platform on which it was originally built and one that our team was eager to enhance their skills in. However, Drupal was not our client’s preferred platform. The United Way staff who would be responsible for updating website content had prior experience using Wordpress, and felt that it would be a better fit for their everyday needs. Additionally, the organization that had originally built the website using Drupal was unable to extract the images, code or database for HDMZ to use. Because of our client’s preference, and the unavailability of key resources for the existing site, Wordpress would be more feasible and approachable for all parties.
A new approach
To best achieve the goals for this project, we decided to utilize a pre-built Wordpress theme. We asked the United Way team to select a few options that they felt would be good fits for the organization, which the HDMZ team then researched to find a secure, regularly maintained theme. Once the theme was selected, we installed the theme and wrote a limited amount of code for elements that did not function as desired. From there, we led training with the content manager who would be responsible for updating the website, showing her how to use blogs and layouts within the theme. The website was up and running within a year.
A happy ending
In July, the CEO and president of the Greater Gallatin United Way, Kimberly Hall, joined HDMZ for one of our twice-weekly town halls. Hall spoke on the organization and its local impact, as well as the impact of HDMZ’s efforts with the website. She shared that with the updates, the website became operationally synched up with the way the organization works in the community, and that the improved functionality helps it to do more of what it’s meant to do. According to Hall, the process also helped her team to reevaluate how they thought about their own operations — and the updated website now matches the level for which they collectively strive.
Though our team did not get the Drupal experience we had anticipated from this particular project, we did expand our capabilities (and eventually expanded our Drupal expertise through other projects). Learning to implement a premade Wordpress theme gave HDMZ a new tool for website building. Such themes can provide more affordable options for companies with lower budgets to create a website. In fact, we were able to offer this solution shortly after our work with United Way for another client with a similar request.
As for Mariana? She’s grateful that HDMZ is so open to helping all the communities of our distributed workforce, not just those near our central office in Chicago. Seeing our work in the community where she lives has made this a powerful experience.
