American Friends of Georgia
American Friends of Georgia is a small non profit that has been dedicated to humanitarian efforts in the small country of Georgia. As part of a rebranding effort, I worked with stakeholders to design a new website from the ground up to make it easier for donors to stay up to date with AFG’s work and learn how to get involved themselves.
It was important for us to make something easy for donors to navigate, but also easy for the small team to regularly update.
The previous version of the website was very utilitarian, but out of date and prone to bugs. If users were able to navigate the site, it was common to quickly become confused as to which projects were ongoing, which were on hold, and which had been completed.
During a series of informal interviews, many users mentioned how important this kind of information is when considering where to donate. Users felt that they were far more likely to donate if they received feedback and regular updates letting them know where their money was being used.
It also became clear that the disorganized visual design of the website made users feel as though the AFG was equally disorganized.
The small team at AFG had been putting much more effort into social media campaigns and email newsletters, and in the process let their website fall by the wayside.
To rectify this, we set about designing a site around visual appeal, ease of use, and regular updates.
The home page was redesigned from the ground up with a friendly hero section and a new mission statement front and center. Beneath the mission, two rows featuring upcoming events and recent updates written by staff allows users to immediately tell what AFG has been up to.
We also wanted to create a timeline to celebrate AFG’s many accomplishments and inform new donors of past efforts.
We wanted to make sure it would be easy for the staff to easily give updates to the current projects. AFG regularly sent newsletters to their audience so we wanted to easily apply that content to the appropriate pages on the website.
The system we used took advantage of an integrated tagging system that allowed the site to take content from newsletters and apply them to the relevant project pages with minimal effort from staff.
Over time, we worked through multiple iterations and changes, such as omitting the events sections as COVID made events impossible. We relied on feedback from the team at AFG, including staff and board members to make sure the designs matched expectations from all sides.
The new American Friends of Georgia website is an attractive home for both stakeholders and users to communicate and get involved with the great work AFG is known for.
