Outdoor Outreach: Website Design

Outdoor Outreach needed a better website design to connect people with their programs. A more compelling way to showcase how they give youth free access to outdoor activities, which in turn inspires confidence, and positive development of the leaders of tomorrow.

Fundraising Made Easier: How a New Website Design Can Change the Way You Do Business

Meredith and Tyler have been such a joy and so easy to work with! They have a well-rounded understanding of nonprofit operations which saved us a lot of time upfront, and their approach to any project is really comprehensive. I especially appreciate that they are so personally involved in the adventure sports community in San Diego. It really shows through in how they conduct their work. I would definitely trust them to take on any website design or digital marketing campaigns!

Kaylie Erickson

Marketing Manager, Outdoor Outreach

Project Highlights

Non-profit fundraising is hard work!  How do we know?  We have over 20 years of non-profit fundraising and marketing experience.  So, from the moment we volunteered for one of Outdoor Outreach‘s mountain bike adventures, we knew we wanted to do more to support their fundraising efforts.

Who are they?  Outdoor Outreach is a San Diego-based 501c3 non-profit that connects youth to the transformative powers of the outdoors.  They support at-risk youth and low-income families, building in-school programs that inspire confidence and leadership.  In addition, they give local youth free access to outdoor activities such as stand-up paddling, mountain biking, rock climbing, and kayaking.

In late 2020, Outdoor Outreach’s Marketing Manager Kaylie Erickson reached out to us for help building a new website.  Their pain points?  The website pages were slow to load and ‘glitchy’, the site was crashing, and customers could not easily find what they need.  In addition, IT support for their current website was incredibly slow.  And, a ticket needed to be submitted for every change requested!  Even though they had the interest and desire to update their own website, they couldn’t.

So our new website design project for Outdoor Outreach would tackle the following:

 

  • Creation of a brand new design in WordPress
  • Provide easy links to program registration, events, and donations
  • Integrate with Classy.org for all payment processing
  • Showcase the impact of their programs through beautifully designed graphics
  • Build a site that can be updated easily by internal team members!

Goals

After years working on non-profit fundraising campaigns, we know there’s typically a small, dedicated team of people that handle everything from updating the website to pitching big donors.  Writing grants to organizing fundraising galas.  Coordinating direct mail campaigns, sending monthly emails, and posting on social media.  Whew!  That’s a lot of work.

So it’s no secret that non-profit fundraising can be overwhelming!  Here were our goals in building a new website:

  • Use our fundraising and membership experience to build a better website that’s easier for potential donors to navigate. A website that makes it easy for a donor to see the impact Outdoor Outreach has and make a gift.
  • Build something simple, yet beautiful. Not heavily customized and cumbersome to update.
  • Showcase the outdoor adventures that participants are a part of- rock climbing, surfing, mountain biking, hiking, and snowboarding
  • Fewer clicks for visitors to find what they need
  • With a little training, Outdoor Outreach staff can make their own website updates!

 

If these sound like goals you might have for your brand or organization, let’s chat about how we might work together!