The best nonprofit websites inspire actions that support their missions. These effective sites feature content that is organized and customized to help users—from the people they serve to donors, partners, and other volunteers—get the info and resources they need when they need them.
Wanting to elevate their website offerings to expand their reach and simplify administrative tasks, the Muscular Dystrophy Family Foundation reached out to TBH Creative for help revamping its web presence. The main goals of their new nonprofit website redesign included:
- Making it easier for users to find what they need with a strategic reorganization of information
- Creating more content that tells the story of how MDFF improves the lives of people living with a neuromuscular disease
- Upgrading the website design with more engaging visual elements and tweaks to improve ADA compliance
Launch date: October 2020
Q&A
TBH Creative chatted via email about the membership website redesign project with MDFF’s board member Jim Badger and TBH Creative’s creative director Joy Olivia Miller. Their responses—below—have been condensed.
Why did MDFF decide to rethink its website strategy and embark on a website redesign project?
Badger: There are thousands of health-related non-profit organizations and charities, like MDFF, located in Indiana—not to mention throughout the national. These organizations are competing with us for financial support, and it became increasingly obvious to our board that we needed to do more to use the web to make a strong positive impression within seconds. We needed to make it easier for those who visit the site to donate by creating an easy-to-use website that told our story quickly and efficiently.
What were you looking for when evaluating web design firms to help you with your project?
Badger: MDFF was looking for a web design firm that had experience and strong copy-writing skills. There are a lot of design firms can make a website pretty, but we needed more. We have incredible stories of hope that we wanted to share about the families that deal with muscular dystrophy, and we wanted to share how we help these families survive and thrive under the weight of hopelessness. We needed a web design firm that could work with us to tell these stories in a respectful and sensitive way. TBH Creative did just that.
Miller: MDFF makes a big impact in so many families’ lives. Getting to help their team explore new ways to build hope and weave impact stories into their website made this a rewarding partnership from start to finish.
With so many web design firms across the United States, why did you pick TBH Creative to be your partner?
Badger: It’s all about trust. We needed to work with a team that would tell us the truth, and TBH Creative did that. Some of the stories, videos, and photos we loved are not right for the new website. Their team held our hand, they listened in a professional, kind way. Through this experience we learned why they are in high demand. TBH Creative knows what they are doing, and their experience and expertise made it easy to take their recommendations to help us make decisions that will get us closer to reaching our goals.
Now that the new site is up and running, how do you think TBH Creative did? What do you think of the new site?
Badger: It’s magic. Although TBH Creative developed the code and design and helped create new starting copy and images, they created a website that we could work with. They created something that would be easy for our MDFF staff to maintain. Even our interns can quickly add stories and photos using our new flexible page templates.
Miller: No matter who you are, managing a website shouldn’t be a frustrating task. This is especially true at a busy nonprofit with limited resources and more important work to do. That’s why MDFF’s website was built on a hassle-free content management system so their team would feel empowered (and comfortable) making regular copy and image changes to tell their story, promote events, and so much more.
Would you recommend TBH Creative to other companies looking for strategic website marketing help?
Badger: We would really like TBH to remain a well-kept secret. Seriously though, working with TBH Creative is one of the best experiences we have had with a partner. We are monitoring the site to see if the activity and donations continue to increase year-over-year, but for now thumbs up for TBH Creative. Our muscular dystrophy families, the board of directors, and all of our volunteers are raving about how great the site looks and communicates our important message. Thank you!
