Wordpress Case Study: NPO’sThe Success Story of The Malvern Red & Black Society
By Shanta R. Nathwani
2Find Me
• Twitter Handle: @TantienHime• Blog: http://tantienhime.wordpress.com
3About Me
Qualifications:• Diploma in Network Administration, York
College of Info. Tech.• Bachelor of Commerce in Info Tech Mgmt,
Ryerson University• Instructor, Sheridan College in Web Design• Independent IT and Social Media Consultant• Clients include NPO’s, Real Estate, Software
Development, Financial and Political Sectors
4
The Malvern Red & Black Society
• Started in 2003 after the 100th Anniversary Reunion of Malvern Collegiate Institute
• Thousands of attendees, but what to do with this wonderful resource?
• So much work on the archives to prepare, but now what?
Create the Alumni Association at arm’s length from the Toronto District School Board
5Problem Definition
• Have a website that is static and takes a programmer to update it
• Newsletter produced twice a year that is 8 pages long. Sent out in paper and email format. PDF uploaded to the site. This is about the extent of the updates to the site.
• Most of the committee are retirees. Who will take up the helm when we are missing the latest three decades or more don’t even know we exist or have little interest?
• Need to engage the community more and have our committee contribute more to the site in smaller pieces
6Needs Assessment
1. Easy updates to the website by our committee with no coding
2. Ability to have multiple contributors
3. Photo Galleries
4. Forums/Discussions
5. Surveys
6. Scalable: New Users, Content Areas for example
7. Customizable
7Why WordPress?
• Highly customizable• Allows for multiple users and multiple domains
(including sub-domains)• Built in SEO, Analytics and framework• Easy and cheap to use• Millions of resources (themes, plugins and forums)• Open Source• Update once and it populates across multiple platforms,
i.e. Social
8.Com vs. .Org
WordPress.com• Hosted on the WordPress
servers• Gives an address like:
tantienhime.wordpress.com, but can have your own domain ($)
• Very little customization• Can be seen on the WordPress
home page• No Plug-ins
WordPress.org• Also known as “self-hosted”• Allows for customization of
almost everything, including themes, plug-ins, permissions, etc.
• Space is only limited by the hosting provider
• Ability to upload video and audio files “out of the box”
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An Important Distinction
Posts
• Dynamic• Tags• Used Mostly for events
and news
Pages
• Static• No Tags• Used for Contact and
About pages
Posts vs. Pages
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Another Important Distinction
Categories
• Helps to determine the structure of the website
• Can be used to create menus much like pages
Tags
• Describes the content• Use about 5-7 per post
Categories vs. Tags
11Budget
Costs• $20 for the domain• $6.95 per month for hosting on BlueHost for one year• $120 Buddy Press Backup system (Personal expense)• Total for the organization: Approximately $100 /yr
Free• Theme• WordPress.org Platform
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•Friends Network•Can be fed manually or automatically
•Individuals or Pages
•Anyone connects with anyone
•Can be fed manually or automatically
•No hierarchy
•Professional Network•Can be fed manually or automatically
•Individuals or groups
Mailchimp
•Emailing list can be updated from master
•Self-manages bouncebacks, unsubscribes, etc.
You Tube or Photo
Gallery
•Can be it’s own channel or placed into posts
Posting Direction Flow
Channels
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Wish List of Customizations
These haven’t been implemented yet, but this will make the site exactly where we want it:• Roles and Capabilities: Enable Contributors to upload
files, such as images• Static block on the home page: Kind of a welcome
message without it being a sticky post• Spacing between headers on the Category Pages and
changing the title on those pages. Show the name of the category rather than “Category Archive”
15Future…
The site is 95% done. There are still a few things we want to do:• Galleries for numerous photos• Dlvr.it for Social publishing• MailChimp to manage email mailing lists• Eventbrite for our 110th Reunion in 2013
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The EndQuestions?