Case Study - THE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL

(www.nationaldevelopmentcouncil.org)

THE CLIENT
With a focus that’s more Main Street than Wall Street, the National Development Council (NDC) is dedicated to the principal of public and community benefit. The NDC is the oldest national non-profit community and economic development organization in the U.S. Since its inception in 1968, the NDC has provided nearly $200 million in affordable housing investment monies, more than $60 million in small business credit, and financed and developed nearly $1 billion in public facilities in thousands of under-served communities. The NDC annually provides technical assistance and professional training to more than 3,000 economic and housing development practitioners. They keep pace with constituent needs in both private and public sectors, and continually add or update programs and services to stay current. From its early days as a small organization bringing capital to low-income communities, the NDC has evolved into a full-service financial institution for community and economic development.

THE CHALLENGE
Since the offerings of the NDC are so diverse, it was very difficult for web site visitors to quickly grasp who the NDC is and what they do. The NDC wanted to create user paths that were more organic and visible, and they wanted a more friendly and informative feel expressed in graphics and overall design.

Internally, the NDC deemed it essential to correlate success story profiles to several disparate tools and programs. For example, the NDC wanted to sort their data-driven success stories by region, tax credit, type of program and other important relational values. With 60+ employees working from offices in NYC, KY and WA, it was crucial that this information be current and easily accessible to NDC regional staff as well as users.

THE O\W SOLUTION
The O\W team initiated a very intensive discovery process with key staff at the NDC to define goals and objectives for the re-designed site. This information-gathering phase was more extensive than usual as the NDC is a very large organization with many different functions and key program areas. Once this process was completed to everyone’s satisfaction, the O\W programming team developed a customized content management system (CMS) to address the NDC’s particular requirements around the Highlights section of their site.

“NDC needed to conveniently and regularly update their site, but custom CMS programs can cost in the high six figures,” says Ric Dragon, CEO of O\W. “However, by combining our knowledge of customization with the best attributes of Macromedia Contribute, a user-friendly software program that allows clients to make their own copy changes, we created a cost-effective CMS solution for NDC.”

NDC in-house staff provided all content for initial launch of the site, and O\W improved the overall look and feel with a few tasteful insertions of Flash technology. And, thanks to the in-depth discovery process and O\W’s user-intuitive systems, the site’s overall structure was revamped to eliminate visitor frustrations, from first-time users to those seeking more in-depth assistance and information.

RESULT
The NDC launched in April 2004 and Jennie Vertrees, training department of NDC, reports she was able to start updating the site immediately, saving both time and money by not involving a third party. “It’s really easy and I can do it myself. People send stories my way, stories that say ‘look at what we’ve done,’ ‘look at what we can do for you,’ and I add them to the Highlights section of the site. I can pull old stories, put newer ones up, and rotate stories around if the material isn’t dated,” she says. “Ric and Shannon at O\W have been really great about answering all my questions, and the more I use it, the easier it gets.”

Vertrees adds there’s a high satisfaction level among site visitors and she receives fewer calls asking questions that are answered on the site. “It’s a definite improvement over our old site, which was really antiquated. This site is easier to maneuver and it’s definitely laid out better. Our users say it’s easier to read, it looks better, and there’s more detail about our services. That was our goal.”

Revised 5/18/04 - DB