Sierra Club Canada Foundation
Protecting our environment, communities, and future via grassroots engagement
Using a customized WordPress design and development, this leading environmental agency repositioned its website to connect, engage, and inspire new and returning visitors to take action. Undertaking a redesign was also an opportunity to improve the site's accessibility and reduce its environmental impact. The Sierra Club Canada Foundation is a volunteer-led, democratic nonprofit that empowers people to be leaders in protecting, restoring and enjoying healthy and safe ecosystems.
The Ask
As Sierra Club Canada prepared to redesign its WordPress website, it had three goals in mind as part of the strategic direction we developed collaboratively. First, it wanted the site to build pride and trust among its members and new visitors. It also wanted the website to tell a compelling story of the organization’s impact and achievements to inform and engage its audience. Finally, it wished to increase and amplify its local, national, and international connections. As an organization concerned about sustainability, Sierra Club Canada prioritized an energy-efficient site design that would be gentle on the planet and accessible to visitors with physical disabilities and restrictions on bandwidth speed.
The Solution
Addressing the goals Sierra Club Canada set for its website required attention to improving the visitor experience functionally and visually. By reworking features directed to donors, members and subscribers, the new site is easier to use, demonstrating dependability and credibility. These features required styling with a third-party customer relationship management system to work seamlessly with the site. The customized WordPress content management system offers chapter and project leaders more flexibility in updating the site while adhering to brand standards.
To extend the organization’s reach, we incorporated an interactive map that acts as a portal to regional chapters and their activities. We also integrated a multilingual plugin to accommodate content translation into French and other languages. We built the site to conform to Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, making it usable by the largest audience possible. Read our series of blog posts on accessibility for websites for more information.
Combined with an improved information architecture, the site’s imagery, use of brand colors, and strong calls to action make the visitor experience engaging and impactful.
Highlights
The site’s homepage showcases alternating dramatic landscape scenes from across the country to reflect the organization’s national scope and inspire visitors to protect them. We reduced these images in size and resolution as much as possible in the interests of accessibility and environmental load while ensuring they still have a visual impact.
We had a great experience working with Mangrove on this new website and they went above and beyond with their work. Their process allowed us to collaborate with our various programs and chapters to develop a site that would meet their diverse needs while still embodying the ethics of sustainability that guide our work.
Roots:
- WordPress
Our Role:
- Custom Wordpress Development
- Graphic Design
- Strategic Direction
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