Creating a Polished Nonprofit Website That Serves a Diverse Set of Visitors
Case Study
A small, private K-12 nonprofit school system in northeastern United States provides rigorous, faith-based instruction for its student population.
The school serves three separate audiences: current students and their families, prospective student families, and alumni. For an institution with steadily declining enrollment, their website needed to especially prioritize acting as a better first touch point for prospective students.
Challenges: A Website That Puzzled Each Core Set of Users
The site needed to operate with dual functions—a place where enrolled students and alumni could see current happenings, and a spot where prospective students and parents could visit to get a strong first impression of the school’s identity, values, positioning, academic rigor, athletics, and more.
The client’s site had been pieced together over the years by school administrators already juggling the regular busy nature of their jobs. The site—acting as a piecemeal hub for parents and students—was often updated with school news and events but also contained outdated information, cluttering the experience.
As a byproduct of busy faculty and staff with no dedicated content manager, the site struggled to communicate the institution’s identity to prospective families, which ultimately led to a steady decline in enrollment.
Key issues included:
No central location for parents to find updated information on school policies, rules, athletic schedules, etc.
Outdated design, copy, and visuals that did not reflect the school’s status as a decades-long premiere, private educational system
A homepage with no welcoming presence or information offered to interested prospective families
Lack of cohesive messaging and tone of voice across site pages
Values and mission buried in secondary pages, rather than front and center
No indication of the existence of separate elementary and high school campuses, making for a confusing experience for both prospective students looking for information and current students searching for updates pertinent to their school
Project Details + Scope of Work
Hired Team: Two copywriters/messaging strategists, web designer, graphic designer, and project manager
Services: Copywriting for all pages, graphic design, web design, site strategy and mapping, messaging and tone of voice edits
Timeline: All copy and messaging docs delivered within two weeks; site strategy, mapping, design, and wireframes initially drafted within 4 weeks with ongoing client feedback and check-ins
The Process
The team met with client stakeholders for a lengthy discussion and workshop that revealed specific gaps in their site and the disconnect between the client’s reputation as a premiere educational institution and the image they put forth through their website.
Competitor Research
Myself and my co-copywriter first completed competitor research on similar institutions that are successful, noting language, mapping, copy, tone of voice, and structure. This allowed us to explore more specific gaps in the site that the client may not have noted.
Key Messages
We then examined their existing key messages and compared them to their comments made in our group workshop, asking:
What did they want to convey in their messages that was missing?
Did their existing messages align with their core audiences (enrollees and their parents, prospective families, and alumni)?
Did the language reflect their premium reputation?
What core values are missing?
Website Copy + Strategy
We began with the heart of the site—the home page—identifying essentials that were missing:
A true compelling hero section headline with any kind of value proposition or attention-grabbing copy
Messaging that communicated the school’s identity, values, or mission
Structure that would enable every core audience to immediately find what they needed
User journey mapping that would naturally move the visitor down the page
We completed similar work on other site pages.
Site Mapping + Navigation
Removing outdated information and restructured mapping to target each core audience and separate school demographics. During these deeper structural parts of the workflow, I collaborated closely with the web and graphic designer to create a site that was cohesive across the board.
Results: From Confusing + Amateur to Clear + Polished
Through new messaging, copy, layout, and design, the updated website:
Clearly communicates its value proposition for prospective students and their families, making it easier to attract new enrollees
Showcases a strong, premium educational brand that reflects the school’s reputation, ensuring no confusing disconnect for website visitors
Features a sitemap that is straightforward for users to navigate and easy for busy staff to make regular updates to, eliminating frustration and cutting back on time spent
Speaks directly and clearly to each of its core audiences, ensuring their stay on the site longer
Is home to a professional and unified tone of voice across its pages
Contains a centralized hub for parents to access school news, updates, policies, and schedules