Our New Website: More Than a Makeover
A letter to our generous supporters, The Hamer Sprout Fund and Australian Communities Foundation, without whom this new website would not have been possible.
Gould League (est. 1909) is an independent, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to getting children connected to nature and inspiring them to enact and advocate for sustainable behaviours. We provide engaging opportunities for students of all ages to learn ‘in, about and for the environment’ through a suite of excursion and outreach programs and our online bookstore.
Our small on-site team utilises a number of online tools to fulfil our mission. Our website, often our first port of contact with schools and the community, hasn’t been meeting administrative or user needs for a number of years and the online bookstore crashed irreparably 12 months ago.
The generous $5,000 grant received from The Hamer Sprout Fund (a sub-fund of Australian Communities Foundation) has funded Gould League’s engagement of a local, professional website developer, Paul Schena from Trafffic’ to build us a whole new website in the WordPress platform. The developers have worked in close consultation with our Operations Manager, Amy Stace-Smith, who has in turn coached a small team of dedicated volunteers (including corporate volunteers) to support the build.
We’re thrilled to be making our new site live today, 12th September 2014. The site will dramatically improve the user experience for our customers, amplify community engagement with our organisation and save our organisation upwards of $4,000 per annum on hosting and application fees plus countless administrative hours. This easy to use, streamlined and modern site will allow us to ‘put our best foot forward’.
The site boasts:
- a user-friendly experience for teachers to ‘Search Our Programs’, determine how our programs are connected to the curriculum and book online with ease
- a secure and comprehensive online bookstore which also processes donations and membership applications and renewals
- e-newsletter quick subscribe and integration with our contact form, booking system and shop
- a blog roll style news page which will allow us to share up-to-date content and link to it via our social media channels
- more accessible links to volunteer, donation and membership opportunities
This upgrade is vital to the longevity of Gould League, ensuring we demonstrate excellence and continuous quality improvement. It would not have been possible without Hamer Sprout Fund’s generous support: thank you!
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To honour the work of our predecessors, here is a shot of our previous website which was built in 1994 and was Australia’s first environmental education website. It was built by passionate & skilled individuals at the time and served the organisation well for many years.