Pinelands Preservation Alliance

Description: Soup to nuts web and content strategy development to create the definitive online resource about the New Jersey Pinelands for the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.

The Challenge

[+ ZOOM] Homepage of Pinelands Preservation Alliance website before FSM overhaul. Image of Homepage of Pinelands Preservation Alliance website before FSM overhaul.

Image of Homepage of Pinelands Preservation Alliance website before FSM overhaul.

Pinelands Preservation Alliance approach Fusionspark Media in 2008. PPA had an older website that was out of date and out of sync with the organization's efforts to protect New Jersey's Pine Barrens. While PPA's website should have been serving as a hub of communications, membership and fundraising activity, it languished in a state of disrepair with no content management system and updates dependent soley on a busy executive director.

It's an experience familiar to a lot of smaller nonprofits and companies saddled with older websites and no clear interactive or new media strategy.

The Strategy

As we do with almost all projects, we recommended a two-phased process that included the all-important planning and strategy development phase in order to establish the scope, plan and budget for the actual site development phase.

The planning phase included meeting with stakeholders, an online survey of PPA's members and search engine optimization research and competition research.

As the primary environmental advocacy group for New Jersey's Pine Barrens, our position was simple: you should and can own the subject matter online. In other words, www.PinelandsAlliance.org should be the definitive resource for all subjects related to the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

[+ ZOOM] Home page of PPA's new site and web presence. Image of Home page of PPA's new site and web presence.

The Phase 1 planning process included the preparation of a detailed report including site map and site architecture documents, content strategy, budget and timeline providing a clear path to development of that definitive online resource.

The end result was a wholesale re-design and re-branding of our organization, which dramatically improved the quality and breadth of our primary communication tool and created one of the most effective communications platforms in the environmental arena in NJ. -- Mike Hunninghake, Pinelands Preservation Alliance

The Result

FSM redesigned and relaunched PPA's web strategy. This included working closely with PPA's communications staff to rebuild the site based on a customized content management system. FSM provided substantial support in photo acquisition and training for the client on photo editing and management as well as organization of video content and customization of client's Vimeo.com channel.

The new site launched to great reviews from members and stakeholders. PPA's email database has experienced steady growth, and its Facebook presence grew dramatically following the launch of the new site. PPA has improved significantly in its rankings for most major key search terms related to New Jersey Pineland and Pine Barrens. And while the launch of PPA's new web presence coincided with the recession, the organization has been able to experiment with more creatives ways to promote online giving and membership development.

Client Comments about FSM

As an environmental non-profit, one of our critical needs is to effectively communicate our mission and activities to our constituents. Until recently our website was the accumulation of periodic “updates” and reformats since its inception over a decade ago. We finally realized we were not utilizing our web presence very effectively, and were no longer in a position to adequately update it ourselves. We decided to engage FusionSpark, who completely transformed our ability to communicate on the web. They patiently guided us through a thorough review of our needs and desires for a new website, and then implemented this new communications strategy in a cutting edge, Web. 2.0 fashion. The end result of the process was a wholesale re-design and re-branding of our organization, which dramatically improved the quality, depth and breadth of our primary communication tool and created one of the most effective communications platforms in the environmental non-profit arena in NJ.

Mike Hunninghake
Director of Communications
Pinelands Preservation Alliance

Visit Pinelands Preservation Alliance now.

Related: Content Marketing, Web Documentary