For the first Centre blog post it seemed fitting to discuss the new website and how it was developed.

Over the last year there had been a lot of discussion about the current website and it’s limitations prompting the suggestion that a new more engaging website was the way forward for the Centre.  

In the Summer of 2018 we were sent the details of a fantastic opportunity from the Transform Foundation, it offered a website grant of £18,000.  This would cover the strategy, design, build, content strategy, training and launch of a new mobile optimised website. We applied and were delighted to hear that they wanted to work with us. 

We then started a 6 month project to design and develop a new website for the Centre. We started working with Raising IT (Transform Foundations technology partner) and their fantastic platform, which has allowed us to have full control of the website with digital fundraising tools integrated allowing us to maximise funds generated from the website and an amazing integrated social media tool. 

It all kicked off with a group website strategy workshop in London. Four members of staff left the Centre on a cold November day, with vital feedback from members and staff, to board the train to London for an intense workshop on what we wanted the new website to look like. At the end of the day we had an outline structure of the website and left with a new tag line - We believe in a future after diagnosis. This structure lead into the design phase with a designer we discussed what we liked and disliked about other websites and in two weeks we signed off the site - but with no content yet!

Each team was then assigned pages to write content for, we gathered member’s, volunteer’s and fundraisers stories, collected a new set of photos of the Centre and the members and then uploaded it to the new site. This sounds like a simple task but a lot of hard work had to go into this stage to ensure content was engaging, correct and in keeping with the Centre’s tone of voice. 

Now, we have this vibrant, clear and engaging website that we hope you will enjoy using. It has been an exciting and rewarding project to be a part of and certainly allowed us to get our creative hats on and learn about the digital world and what it can offer us as a charity. It has allowed us to expand our knowledge and given us a fantastic opportunity to be a part of the digital world and all it can offer to our members, potential members, volunteers and fundraisers.

We would like to thank the Transform Foundation and Raising IT for all their hard work and help in getting our ideas and aspirations for the new website to become a reality.