Archive for category Non-Profit

Winston Area Community Partnership

Jun 29

Posted by Matthew Danskine in Non-Profit, Portfolio, Self-Managed Websites | No Comments

This is actually the second version of this website. When I did the first, they didn’t have much budget and didn’t really know how much they would use their website. They asked for a pretty static site and, to be honest, WordPress hadn’t really become a functional Content Management System yet. After having a website for a few years they had a much better idea what they wanted and how they could use it. I sat down with them, listened to their needs and we decided that WordPress was definitely the answer. I was able to customize a template so it looked very much like their old site (a design they really liked) and gave them the flexibility they needed to be able to add pages, change text and even manage their own events list and calendar.

They’ve been using this site for about a year now and have had no issues with managing events, editing text or adding photos to slideshows in posts and on pages. I consider this site a real win.

Umpqua Community College Foundation

May 9

Posted by Matthew Danskine in Back End Programming, Education, Non-Profit, Portfolio | No Comments

The UCC Foundation wanted a website where they could send students to fill out scholarship and grant paperwork. The main idea was to allow the students to fill out their criteria information online, then have a way to export the information so the Foundation folks could sort and look at the information in a more useful way. In the past, they had to take paper applications and type the criteria information into a spreadsheet. Very time consuming when you have several hundred applicants and 60-75 criteria each.

I was able to give them a custom database application that gives them one or two click access to all the information they need. One button exports all the student criteria into a spreadsheet. Saved hours and hours of time. Another button prints all 450+ applications (3000+ pages) in a single click.

Upgrades planned for next year include the ability to convert all the applications back into a PDF that includes a couple documents the students upload into the system and a way to send only specific applications to the printer, as distinct files, that can be stapled and hold punched automatically.

Pretty cool deal, really. A lot of work went into it and the client was pretty thrilled with the results.

Winston Area Community Partnership

Mar 28

Posted by Matthew Danskine in Non-Profit, Portfolio | No Comments

Work included a redesign for the local non-profit The Winston Area Community Partnership. I did the original redesign a few years ago, but times change and they needed the ability to update their website more often and without having to budget for it. What I did for them was create a custom WordPress blog with their design and some special plugins that allow them to manage an event list and calendar. They also have the ability to place slideshows anywhere they like and create both static pages as well as post to their blog. Pretty slick, really. Even if I do say so myself. :)

Winston Area Community Partnership Redesign

MoVelocity.org – A site for a movement!

Mar 28

Posted by Matthew Danskine in Non-Profit, Portfolio | No Comments

MoVelocity.org is a site that I have enjoyed being a part of quite a lot. For those who don’t know, it’s a free site started by a local group whose only goal was to get people up and moving. The site, in idea, is very simple. Allow people to log in, post exercise or other activities they do (Yard Monkey is my favorite), convert those activities to miles and try to get enough people doing it to reach 1,000,000 miles. On the back end, it’s not really all that simple. There is a lot of calculating and database work taking place behind the scenes.

MoVelocity.org has been gaining miles very slowly lately. Not sure why. Perhaps people have forgotten about it. We’re nearing 680,000 miles, but an article in the News Review some time about a man walking across the USA kind of got me thinking about it again. I emailed the man and he said he would be happy to talk to MoVelocity about letting us track his movements across the USA. I’m hoping that we’ll get a reciprocal link with his site and, as he progresses on his trip and talks to people all across the land, we get more members and finally hit that million mile mark.

You should check the site out. There’s nothing to buy. Only motivation to go.