Website for “under the rose”
Today I designed and donated a simple website to launch under the rose, an album featuring master oud player Rajim AlHaj and nouveau flamenco pioneer Ottmar Liebert. The musicians who recorded this album are giving it away for free in support of Direct Aid Iraq.
Click above to listen to under the rose
Using free WordPress templates for fast & affordable redesigns
Here are two beautiful, highly functional, self-editable websites that were launched on shoestring budgets by making good use of off-the-shelf WordPress templates:
Deva Foundation
www.deva.org
I started off with this freely available WP theme. Then my client found a nice stock image of clouds on iStockPhoto.com that I converted into an ephemeral background. Finally, I popped in a new header graphic, improved the font styling (and IE compatibility) and integrated iContact for email newsletter signups and and PayPal for ecommerce.
Ta-da! Deva Foundation’s brand new site was completed in less than 20 hours, from concept to completion.
Maria Benitez
www.MariaBenitez.com
This website for the legendary Santa Fe flamenco dancer Maria Benitez was completed in even less time by taking advantage of the excellent — and freely available – “Yoghourt” WordPress theme.
Being With Dying
Today we launched this simple elegant website to promote Upaya’s enormously important “Being With Dying” training program:
www.BeingWithDying.org
“The professional Training Program in Contemplative End-of-Life Care has long been dedicated to fostering a revolution in care of the dying. This unique program provides clinicians with essential tools for taking care of dying people with skill and compassion, as well as sustaining resilience and dedication as they serve others.”
Redesign for The Greenlining Institute
greenlining.org
I’m very pleased to announce the redesign and redeployment of greenlining.org.
Associate Director Orson Aguilar at Greenlining hired me to make a brand new website, following a look and feel sketched out by their designer. They needed a customized content management system that would make it easy for them to update their news, videos, publications, and policy initiatives. Everything needed to be database-driven, from the home page to the staff list to the news area.
Highlights
- Videos are automatically embedded and synchronized with content uploaded to YouTube™
- Images and all other content on the website can be edited using a web browser. No need to photoshop images to scale or crop them, no need to create PDF previews. It’s all done on the fly.
- PDFs, videos, and news articles are all tagged with the policy initiatives they relate to, so the policy pages stay fresh and up-to date whenever new content is added.
- Seamless integration with PHPList for the ability to send email newsletters to 1000’s of subscribers.
About the Client
The Greenlining Institute’s mission is to empower communities of color and other disadvantaged groups through multi-ethnic economic and leadership development, civil rights and anti-redlining activities. They’ve made financial institutions like the Bank of America and Wells Fargo commit to investing over $900 billion (over 10 years) to help the communities they serve.
New Donations System for Upaya.org
The Challenge: The Upaya Institute relies on donations to support a variety of projects, and using PayPal for donations has turned out to be expensive and difficult to track. Upaya needs to be able quickly manage and prioritize a list of funds, and make it easier for donors to make contributions.
The Solution: We decided to replace Upaya’s PayPal donation button with a dynamic funds editor that deposits donations straight into a bank account. Donors can specify what funds they want to support, and Upaya’s accountant can easily see what donations have been made each day. Try it out on upaya.org.
This is a 3.5 minute tour of the public side of this system (for making donations) and the administrative side (for managing donation campaigns and retrieving results.)