Having built homes for nearly 20 years, Spark of Hope is expanding its service and needs a new website to support the growth. The foundation now provides funding and helping hands to numerous orphanages throughout Mexico and are establishing a refuge for abandoned women as well.

The foundation needed a new website that would not only support future expansion, but enable it.

I identified two personas that would represent the types of visitors that would be using the site. These personas served as inspiration as I built in functionality, wrote copy, and formed the visual design of the site.

It was important that users felt they could trust Spark of Hope with their time and their money, so pages were designed to highlight the foundation’s heritage and success over the years. As they peruse the site, users should recognize the years of experience that influences Spark of Hope on a daily basis.

Above all else, visitors needed to understand the lifelong friendships that bloom from each service trip, and the personal growth that volunteers could experience in service. photography, video, and copy throughout the site highlight the personal nature of each service trip.

The updated brand identity expands upon the existing Spark of Hope mark and “honey” color. The new type stack intends to make the brand more modern and while integrating a subtle rugged adventurousness.

For the colors, I introduced a light sea green as the new primary color, and combined the existing honey with a fire red. The complementary warm and cool colors make the brand versatile in tone, just as a service trip can be equally exciting and uplifting.

Volunteers suffered two main pain points when using the old website.

1. It was hard to find the trip sign up page
2. They had to pay for their trip separately through venmo, sometimes requiring the Spark team to follow up

The updated sign up process is intuitive and natural. Volunteers can scan through available trips, identify which best fits their needs, sign up, and pay for the trip, all in one simple process.

I integrated the sign up process with Spark of Hope’s existing spreadsheets and Paypal account so the process is automated for all sign ups, saving countless hours.

On the old site, donors had a hard time donating, and their options were limited. The new donation flow is easy and customizable for each donor. They can choose who they donate to and how.

The majority of Spark of Hope’s funding has come from a small group of monthly donors. For Spark of Hope to successfully expand its service, this pool of regular donors needs to increase considerably. We put an emphasis on joining a monthly donor’s club, and I built a monthly donation functionality into the site to meet these needs.

It was important that this new site would continue to grow with the Spark of Hope team for years to come. Consequently I integrated a content management system (CMS) into the site so the team could continue to add service trips, new content, and even new pages as the foundation evolved.

The team was blown away by the ease at which they could change text, links and photos on the site. Instead of spending hours with a complicated Wordpress template, the team can now make changes or additions in a matter of minutes.