Metropolitan Planning Council

When we started to work with MPC, their team had recently experienced a strategic change in the organization that reshaped its pillars of impact. The organization had shifted to center diversity, equity, and inclusion—a change that wasn’t feasible to represent on their outdated site’s infrastructure. The team approached Mangrove for website development and a custom-built WordPress site that would better serve their audience and accurately represent the organization now and into the future. We were also asked to improve accessibility, build a responsive front end, and deliver stunning graphic design.

Our development team leveraged the features of WordPress to create a backend to efficiently organize MPC’s wealth of resources, blogs, and news items. This infrastructure makes the site both easier to use and more accessible for the client and end users. The site is built to WCAG Level A.

Several key customizations also enhance how users engage with the site. These include a smooth integration with Blackbaud for donations and donor management and a dedicated Board Member Portal. The site design is welcoming, modern, and clean, with warm visuals and careful pops of color. With this elevated design in place, the organization’s visual brand represents the breadth and depth of their equity work in the greater Chicago area.

Meticulous coordination with MPC ensured that our team could migrate content from an outdated platform without compromising its integrity.

Over the years, MPC developed many microsites for annual reports and grant-funded projects, thus a solution to create and manage microsites was essential. We empowered their team to create these internally by building custom templates within the new website. Now, MPC can host the microsites within the primary site to streamline management and ensure they remain aligned and on-brand.

The new website will streamline operations for MPC, making essential information readily available and empowering stakeholders and team members. It is a beautiful site that tells the organization’s impact story, celebrates its history, and positions the team well as they look toward the future. It is a tool they can build upon as needs change and their mission progresses.

• A website that reflects 90 years of community impact
• Smooth integration with Blackbaud for donations and donor management
• Creation of a dedicated Board Member Portal
• Migration of content from aspnet platform
• Dedicated resource library
• A stronger visual representation elevates the organization and its work
• Branding elements used on the website were also applied to marketing materials, updating the look and feel across mediums and creating consistency for the MPC team