Web development · for charities and nonprofit organisations ยท by Jason King
The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust’s candle tributes website is one of the more interesting, worthwhile and challenging web projects I’ve worked on.
The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, an organisation that I’ve worked with on and off for the last eight years, commissioned me to design a new mini-website. The site gives women (and their partners) who have lost a child to an ectopic pregnancy, opportunity to light a candle and leave a message in remembrance.
Relate London North West is a branch of the relationship counselling charity. I designed their website using WordPress, a free and open source content management system. It enables Relate to publish pages on their website and easily make changes to text and images.
Online discussion forums enable your website’s visitors to have a conversation. Your website could host a busy virtual community; and if you are a health organisation you could even use forums to provide an Internet-based support network. In 2007 the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust won an eWellbeing award for its use of online forums in building social networks. This case study explains what was learnt along the way.
There are many ways that charities can use the Internet to their benefit, beyond having a simple ‘brochure-style’ website. The Media Trust have published a free booklet of case studies about volunary organisations’ use of new media and I recommend it to any charity that wants to make an impact online but doesn’t know which tools to choose.
The Change Management Group is a business consultancy that’s based in the UK but has an international reach. I built their website in WordPress using the Striking premium theme, and the resulting website is a great improvement over their previous site.
The Ectopic Pregnancy raises awareness of ectopic pregnancies amongst women of childbearing age, the medical profession and the general public. Their website is a vital tool for providing information and enabling those affected by this medical condition to share their own experiences. The site underwent a complete redesign in 2010 and now uses the WordPress content management system. Staff at the Trust can easily update their own pages and publish news on the website.
I was commissioned to build a campaign website for Breast Cancer Care. Images created in Photoshop were provided, which had been created by a graphic design company. My job was to take these pictures and use them to build a functioning website using WordPress, with a form to enable visitors to leave messages of support, and prominent links with social networking websites.