Customer PortalChallenge
Katie Styrt is the former Associate Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Davenport. This nonprofit ministers to a little less than 700 individual parishioners. The church’s website was aged, not ADA compliant, or mobile friendly; the staff knew it needed to be updated. The staff needed something uncomplicated, attractive, and accessible for parishioners and visitors. And, the staff had to be careful of what considerations they chose for the site because they had a limited budget.
Objective
The church’s original website had been created by a staff member who was about to retire: with her leaving, they were also losing the only person who knew how to maintain the website. The staff wanted the new website to be attractive, with a more appealing look. They knew that they had to merge the desktop and mobile versions of the site into one platform. The team was not sure how to accomplish these goals themselves. Katie knew who to turn to: “We have always used Twin State for network back up and the server…I have no idea how long we have had a relationship – but if it breaks and is not a copier, we call Twin State for our technical support.”
Our web designer listened to their issues and noted that along with an attractive and easy-to-use site, the church needed the site to be responsive, functioning, and looking good on any device, including a phone. Taking into account their requests, TSTS came up with a number of strategies to help – and even recommended some things the church staff had not thought of.
Progress
Katie was impressed that our web designer provided a number of options to meet their needs. “They knew A LOT more than we did! They gave us concrete advice for our questions and in the end, suggested using a template, which would give us everything we desired.” The template allowed for a cleaner, simpler design that was easy to use and simple for the staff to maintain. TSTS also created a responsive website design.
With a number of older parishioners, Katie wanted to ensure the site was ADA compliant as well. “We have a decent number of parishioners who have hearing loss and sight issues. We wanted our website to be as accessible as possible for them.”
Our web designer walked the staff through every step of the website build process to ensure they felt confident with how the website worked. Katie was on leave when the project wrapped up, but once she returned and saw the site, “I thought, ‘Thank God,” because…it was beautiful. The transfer went really well. It was definitely successful.”
Result
First Presbyterian Church now has a great upgrade on their website: the site has a simpler, straight forward design (for both staff and visitors), it is responsive to any device, and it is ADA compliant. They came in under budget and on time, so they had some extra funds to make additional upgrades they hadn’t counted on!
“We are very happy. We were glad the project was smooth, and the website is so easy to use. It was exactly as promised,” Katie said. Being ADA compliant is something the staff is proud of. “And it just made sense! We want to welcome everyone!”
Up and running, beautiful, and BONUS: First Presbyterian Church even had a bit of money left over to do some other upgrading!
TSTS has lots of options when it comes to creating websites: we can produce one from the ground up or tailor a template that meets your individual and economic needs. TSTS will work with you every step of the way, no matter your budget, to ensure you receive the best value for and are delighted with your new design, just like Katie and her staff.