How a Human-Centered Website Redesign Helped Family Promise Streamline Support and Giving
For a nonprofit, a website is rarely just a website.
It may be the first place a parent looks after realizing their family has nowhere safe to sleep. It may be where a donor decides whether to give once or become a monthly supporter. It may be how a volunteer learns what help is needed this week, not six months ago.
That is why nonprofit websites carry more weight than many people realize. They have to be clear, current, and easy to use, especially when the people visiting them are under stress.
Family Promise of Lee County was already doing urgent, hands-on work in its community. The organization provides shelter, meals, and case management for local families with children who are facing housing instability. But its legacy website was making key tasks harder than they needed to be.
Families struggled to find eligibility details and application steps. Donors had limited giving options. Volunteers had to piece together information from different pages. Staff and board information had fallen out of date, which led to misrouted inquiries and confusion.
Catalysta partnered with Executive Director Tamara Brogan and the Family Promise leadership team to rebuild the site around the people who use it most: families seeking help, donors, and community volunteers.
The website needed to serve people in urgent moments
Family Promise of Lee County works with families during some of their most vulnerable seasons. A site visitor might be a parent looking for shelter. They might be using a phone with limited time, limited privacy, or limited battery life. They may not know what documents they need or whether they qualify for support.
That context shaped the entire redesign.
The goal was not to make the site look newer for the sake of appearance. The goal was to remove friction from important actions:
Applying for help
Understanding eligibility
Making a donation
Signing up to volunteer
Learning how faith communities and partners can support the mission
Finding accurate contact and leadership information
A strong nonprofit website should answer pressing questions quickly. It should help people take the next step without guessing where to click. It should also reduce manual work for staff by routing people to the right place the first time.
For Family Promise, that meant treating the website as a service tool, not a brochure.
The old site created friction for families, donors, and volunteers
Before the redesign, Family Promise faced several digital roadblocks. Some were technical. Others were content-related. Together, they made the online experience harder for the people the organization wanted to serve.
Families could not easily find the application path
The most urgent issue was the application process.
Families facing housing uncertainty needed clear guidance. They needed to know who Family Promise serves, what eligibility requirements apply, and how to begin the intake process. On the legacy site, that information was not easy enough to find.
When someone is in crisis, even a small barrier can feel large. A hidden form, unclear wording, or missing eligibility details can delay action. It can also increase the number of phone calls or emails staff must handle manually.
The redesign had to make the application path visible, simple, and compassionate.
Donors had too few giving options
The old site only supported one-time donations.
That limited how supporters could participate. Many donors prefer monthly giving because it fits their budget and creates a steady connection to the cause. Some want to designate a gift or include a note about their donation.
Without those options, Family Promise was missing a chance to build stronger donor relationships online.
The new site needed to make giving simple while still giving supporters enough flexibility to express intent.
Public information had fallen out of date
Outdated staff photos, board rosters, and contact details created another problem. People trying to reach the organization could end up using old information or contacting the wrong person.
For nonprofits, current information builds trust. Visitors want to know who is leading the work. Partners want to know how to connect. Donors want confidence that the organization is active, organized, and accountable.
The redesign gave Family Promise a cleaner structure for maintaining key information over time.
Important messaging was spread across the site
Family Promise had key details that mattered to the public, but those details were fragmented.
Information about shelter capacity, including the ability to shelter a limited number of families at a time, was not as clear as it could be. Volunteer needs and faith-community partnerships were inaccessible due to a broken navigation menu.
A visitor should not have to hunt for the basics. The new site needed to bring the core message together in a way that was easy to understand and easy to act on.
The redesign focused on three core audiences
A useful nonprofit website starts with a simple question: who is using this site, and what are they trying to do?
For Family Promise, the answer centered on three groups.
Families seeking help
Families needed the fastest, clearest path to support.
Catalysta worked with the Family Promise team to organize the site so families could quickly understand whether the program may be a fit and how to begin the intake process. The language had to be direct without feeling cold. It had to respect the stress of the moment.
That meant avoiding vague labels and buried instructions. The redesigned experience made the help-seeking path easier to recognize from the start.
Strong intake content does more than collect information. It sets expectations. It tells families what to prepare, what happens next, and how to move forward.
Donors ready to support the mission
Donors needed a giving experience that felt simple and trustworthy.
The redesign expanded online giving beyond one-time donations. Supporters could set up recurring monthly gifts, which helps create more predictable support for ongoing needs. They could also leave notes or designate gifts, giving them a clearer way to communicate their intent.
The donation path needed to be visible without overwhelming the rest of the site. For mission-driven organizations, giving should feel like a natural response to the story, not a hard sell.
Family Promise’s work is tangible: shelter, meals, and case management for families with children. The site needed to make that mission clear, then make generosity easy.
Volunteers and community partners
Volunteers and faith-community partners play a key role in the Family Promise model.
The redesigned site clarified how people and groups can get involved. Instead of scattering volunteer information across multiple areas, the new structure made participation easier to understand.
Visitors could learn what kinds of support are needed, how partnerships fit into the mission, and where to begin. That matters because volunteer energy can fade when the next step is unclear.
A good volunteer page does not need to say everything. It needs to help the right person raise their hand.
Human-centered design made the site easier to use
The phrase human-centered website redesign can sound abstract, but in practice it means making decisions around real people and real tasks.
For this project, that meant viewing every page through the eyes of someone arriving with a specific need.
A parent might ask:
Can this organization help my family?
Do we qualify?
How do I apply?
What happens after I submit information?
A donor might ask:
What does this organization do?
Can I give monthly?
Can I include a note or designate my gift?
Does this feel trustworthy?
A volunteer might ask:
What kind of help is needed?
Can my church or group participate?
Who do I contact?
What is the next step?
Those questions shaped the site structure, page content, and calls to action.
The new site clarified action paths across the mission
The redesigned Family Promise site gave each audience a clearer path.
For families, the application process became easier to find and understand. Eligibility details and intake steps were brought forward so visitors could make informed decisions before reaching out.
For donors, the giving experience became more flexible. Monthly donations and designated notes allowed supporters to give in ways that matched their intent. This is especially helpful for nonprofits that rely on both immediate gifts and ongoing community support.
For volunteers, the site did a better job explaining needs and partnership opportunities. That includes the role of faith communities, which are often central to local support networks.
For staff, updated content helped reduce confusion. Current staff photos, board information, and contact details made the organization easier to understand and reach.
The site also communicated key public information more clearly, including Family Promise’s shelter capacity of 4 families at a time. That kind of detail helps set realistic expectations and gives visitors a more accurate picture of the work.
The project also made the site easier to maintain
A redesign should not only improve the visitor experience on launch day. It should also make future updates easier.
Nonprofit teams often work with limited staff time. If a website is difficult to update, it does not take long for information to become stale. Staff changes, board changes, program updates, volunteer needs, and donation priorities all need attention.
Catalysta built the redesign around a cleaner content structure. That made it easier for Family Promise to keep core information current after launch.
This matters because trust is cumulative. A current board roster, accurate contact information, and clear program details all signal that the organization is attentive. The site does not need to be flashy. It needs to be dependable.
A maintainable website also protects staff capacity. When information is easy to update, small changes do not become major projects.
Good nonprofit design balances clarity and compassion
Nonprofit websites have to do something harder than many commercial websites. They must guide action while handling sensitive situations with care.
For Family Promise, that meant the redesign had to avoid two common problems.
The first problem is overloading visitors with information. Nonprofits often have complex programs, many partners, and years of context. All of that matters, but not all of it belongs on the first screen.
The second problem is making the site too thin. A few inspiring sentences are not enough when a family needs eligibility details or a donor wants to understand how support helps.
The right balance comes from organizing information by user need.
A family seeking shelter should not have to read an annual report to find the application. A donor should not have to search through program pages to give monthly. A volunteer should not have to guess whether help is still needed.
Clear design is an act of respect. It saves time, lowers stress, and lets people focus on the mission.
What other nonprofits can learn from this project.
Family Promise of Lee County’s redesign offers useful lessons for any nonprofit reviewing its website.
Start with the most urgent visitor need
The most important page is not always the homepage. It may be the application page, donation page, volunteer form, or contact page.
Start by identifying the moments where confusion has the highest cost. For Family Promise, intake clarity was essential because families needed help quickly.
Make giving flexible
One-time gifts are useful, but they should not be the only option. Monthly giving gives supporters a way to stay connected over time. Gift notes and designations can also help donors communicate what they care about.
The donation process should be easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to complete.
Keep public information current
Outdated leadership, staff, board, or contact information can weaken trust. It can also waste staff time when messages go to the wrong place.
A redesign is a good time to clean up this content, but maintenance matters just as much after launch.
Write for action, not for internal structure
Many nonprofit websites are organized around how the organization thinks about its own work. Visitors think differently. They arrive with tasks.
A family wants help. A donor wants to give. A volunteer wants to serve. A partner wants to connect.
The site should meet those needs directly.
A clearer website can strengthen the whole mission
Family Promise of Lee County was already providing vital support to families with children. The redesign did not create the mission. It helped the website serve that mission more faithfully.
By simplifying the application path, expanding donation options, updating public information, and clarifying volunteer and partner opportunities, the new site became a more useful doorway into the organization’s work.
That is the real value of human-centered nonprofit web design. It connects people to the next right step with less confusion and more care.
For families, that step may be asking for help. For donors, it may be starting a monthly gift. For volunteers, it may be offering time, meals, or community support.
A nonprofit website works best when it honors all of those moments and makes each one easier to act on.
Comments