The Blue Ocean - web design, print design, communications and photography from SouthCoast Massachusetts.
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Fairhaven High School Alumni Association
Project scope: web design & development, communications
As time and resources allow, The Blue Ocean selectively volunteers its expertise to assist deserving 501(c)3 non-profits in the community. Our work with the Fairhaven High School Alumni Association is an example of that effort.
The “Castle on the Hill”, Fairhaven High School is an historically significant piece of architecture - one of the most ornate public schools ever built. For over 100 years, its students have taken pride not only in the building itself, but in the quality education that the school provided them. The Fairhaven High School Alumni Association seeks to give back to both the school and its current students through enlisting alumni support and contributions. FHS Alumni has no paid staff, and 100% of the proceeds collected by the organization go directly to the preservation of the school and the enrichment of its students.
The FHS Alumni Association contacted The Blue Ocean with a need to build a website presence. Their goals were to collect donations, sell merchandise, and communicate alumni news and information, while enlisting other Fairhaven alumni to join them in their efforts. The Blue Ocean designed a website that answered all these needs, and delivered even more.
By developing this site using the ExpressionEngine CMS back end, we gave the FHS alumni volunteers a tool they could use to manage all aspects of the site content themselves. Their staff can now edit page copy, images, slideshows, and all other content on the site. In fact, the FHS Alumni site impressed even ExpressionEngine themselves, and it’s currently featured in their own Showcase Gallery as an example of a successful non-profit website build.
With the website complete, The Blue Ocean also provided the Fairhaven High Alumni with e-newsletter creation and management capabilities. Our e-newsletter creation and management tools allow FHS Alumni to connect to their subscriber list of nearly 600 individuals. The newsletter and site statistics software we installed helps them monitor the effectiveness of their newsletter, web, and offline campaigns.
With this new set of interactive tools in hand, 2008 was a record year for the FHS Alumni Association. The organization collected over $16,000 in donations from 668 donors. In 2008, they also provided the school’s current students with a new $11,000 computer lab—a cutting-edge facility to help Fairhaven kids succeed academically.
The Blue Ocean is proud to have played a small role in helping the Fairhaven High School Alumni Association increase the effectiveness of their volunteer efforts.