Website Design (WordPress)

We seek a web designer to create structure and design options for our nonprofit website. We use WordPress as our hosting platform.

The volunteer should assess and incorporate our goals and needs and consider our key audiences. The designer should also assess our technical capabilities. The project's deliverable is a draft of architecture and design concepts that we can easily share with a web developer volunteer or a member of our team who will use the guide to create our new site.

Our work will take place over multiple meetings in six to nine weeks. In our first meeting, the volunteer should interview us about our desired features, our web capabilities, and our technical expertise. Then, they'll synthesize the information into a requirements briefing. We'll engage in various check-ins, where a member or members of our team will provide feedback. The volunteer will audit our current site to create a draft of site architecture and design options including wireframes, site structure, and other visual elements.

Our operation has existed for nearly 40 years, but has been an official nonprofit since 2021. We are loved by the community that knows us as a summer camp and riding lesson barn, but we want to extend our efforts by offering a holistic farm experience for all ages. This requires creating new programs, partnering with neighboring farms, and increasing our exposure to a wider community. Our website often serves as a first impression for interested parties like families, schools, and other nonprofits, so providing a professional, informative site will allow us to connect with others as we expand. Additionally, we are beginning to apply for more grants to help us manage our growing needs, and our site needs to more accurately reflect our intentions as an organization to inform potential funders.

While a growth mindset comprises half the motivation for this project, maintenance takes up the other half: the website is used by hundreds of parents every winter/spring to sign children up for our summer camp. We need to make the site more user-friendly to reduce confusion and provide a smoother sign-up process.

As a web designer, the volunteer will be respected as the expert on this project! We are excited to open a dialogue with a professional about ways to make our website accessible and attractive. Because we are a small organization, our web designer will have more artistic freedom than one might find in a larger operation, and we will be sure to provide as much structure and guidance about our vision as the volunteer needs. We look forward to working with you!

We have already thought about and are prepared to brief you about our current website platform, budget restrictions for the build, our branding collaterals and norms, and information about our stakeholder groups and target audiences. We've also compiled some photos and have some language developed that we will share with you and samples of sites we like.