American Friends Service Committee Website Migration to Drupal

The American Friends Service Committee came to CivicActions with a problem. Both AFSC staff and their supporters found their website site difficult to navigate; content was hard to find and often out of date. The site was performing poorly with search engines and had no formal search engine optimization. Additionally, the basic site structure and strategy had not been reviewed for more than five years and did not support organizational needs or current Internet trends. Due to the inflexible design of the content management system they were using, redesigning the site within the current platform was going to be a challenge.

The AFSC puts as much of its budget into its campaigns and service work as possible -- whether that is waging peace around the world or doing long term relief work in Haiti -- and that didn't leave a lot for web development. They knew that they wanted to use Drupal and that they wanted to play a hands on role in the development process. They ultimately wanted to be able to maintain and improve upon their site without relying on outside consultants. Sadie Honey, Owen Barton and the engineer team worked with AFSC to plan out the project so that they could take advantage of CivicActions’ deep Information Architecture, Project Management, Drupal Configuration and Development, and Quality Assurance expertise.

Before the project started AFSC worked internally to develop information architecture and wireframes.  Information Architect Zoey Kroll reviewed these documents, making sure that the site was constructed with the external user in mind. Owen, Alex Scott and Raj Singh then selected the right mix of modules, and did some of the configuration heavy lifting. With the foundation laid and framing roughed out, the CivicActions team members handed the work over to AFSC, providing support via email and telephone as needed. AFSC also worked internally to develop a visual design which Alex implemented in collaboration with their Visual Designer and CSS expert. Before the site launched, Hailu Dyami provided cross browser testing and then provided support as AFSC addressed issues found.

The website launched about 4 months after the project started. AFSC has assumed the full responsibility of maintaining and extending the site having learned a tremendous amount about Drupal over the course of the project. CivicActions continues to provide high level consulting support on an as needed basis.