brief
The Fostering Network is the UK’s leading fostering charity, dedicated to championing fostering and making foster care the very best it can be. It brings together and supports everyone who is involved in the lives of fostered children, including families and the services that work with them.
We originally partnered with The Fostering Network with a brief to redesign their website. They had a dated site and wanted to showcase their work better and increase user engagement with content. As a membership organisation, they also wanted to provide greater value for existing members and increase success in recruiting new members.
We have continued partnering with The Fostering Network since then to support, maintain and update their website. In 2021, with both Drupal 7 and The Fostering Network’s CRM database nearing end of life, we were also delighted to undertake another large web development project to ensure the charity’s digital longevity.
action – initial
We collaborated closely with the charity to explore and clarify its needs, and then created a new Drupal website design which allows for maximum personalisation and member engagement. We created a compelling and personalised user journey, in which content is surfaced based on a user’s profile and past browsing history, enabling users to find an endless stream of interesting and relevant information.
The site has differential data display options based on user types (such as logged-in member / non-member) and presents personalised data according to each users’ preferences and previous site usage. Like Google and Amazon, the website is able to ‘learn’ a user’s preferences and therefore display the most relevant content, with increasing accuracy over time.
The Fostering Network also publishes a prestigious printed magazine and we were keen to give it an innovative digital makeover to maximise member engagement. We replaced the charity’s previous PDF download version with a customised, glossy, online version, where users can digitally flip through pages in the same way they would a normal magazine. The full publication is open only to members, but site visitors can view snippets.
action – 2021
With both the website’s Drupal 7 design and integrated CRM database needing to be changed, we worked with the charity on another large development project – rebuilding the website in Drupal 8 and shifting the CRM to MS Dynamics.
Since our original web build, the charity’s in-house team had added several extra features to the website, making it even larger and more complex than before. We began by scoping out these additional site elements and making a robust plan to ensure all of The Fostering Network’s content, data and functionality would be migrated to the new site.
Within extremely tight deadlines, we were able to recreate the site in Drupal 8 and port all of the website data, including personalisation. We also liaised with the third-party CRM provider to ensure that updated database details – including member subscriptions, foster carer details, fostering agency records and other vital information – integrated seamlessly with the new site.
impact
The new site has shown hugely positive improvements in performance. Membership purchases have increased by 58%, traffic to the login page has increased has 38%, and average page loading time has decreased by 45%.
We continue to work with The Fostering Network, providing ongoing membership website management and support to keep their online presence fresh, up-to-date and functioning optimally.
