The Malvern Red & Black Society needed to update their aging website to better engage alumni and share information. They chose WordPress because it allows non-technical users to easily update content, has a large community for support, and is cost-effective. They worked with a consultant to create a new WordPress site that features photo galleries, forums, surveys and other improvements over the static previous site. While the new site is nearly complete, the Society aims to continue improving it with photo galleries, social publishing and email list management tools.

1. Wordpress Case
Study: NPO’s
The Success Story of The Malvern Red & Black Society
By Shanta R. Nathwani

2. • Twitter Handle: @TantienHime
• Blog: http://tantienhime.wordpress.com
Find Me 2

3. Qualifications:
• Diploma in Network Administration, York
College of Info. Tech.
• Bachelor of Commerce in Info Tech Mgmt,
Ryerson University
• Instructor, Sheridan College in Web Design
• Independent IT and Social Media Consultant
• Clients include NPO’s, Real Estate, Software
Development, Financial and Political Sectors
About Me 3

4. • Started in 2003 after the 100th Anniversary Reunion of
Malvern Collegiate Institute
• Thousands of attendees, but what to do with this
wonderful resource?
• So much work on the archives to prepare, but now what?
Create the Alumni Association at arm’s length from
the Toronto District School Board
The Malvern Red & Black
Society 4

5. • Have a website that is static and takes a programmer to
update it
• Newsletter produced twice a year that is 8 pages long.
Sent out in paper and email format. PDF uploaded to the
site. This is about the extent of the updates to the site.
• Most of the committee are retirees. Who will take up the
helm when we are missing the latest three decades or
more don’t even know we exist or have little interest?
• Need to engage the community more and have our
committee contribute more to the site in smaller pieces
Problem Definition 5

6. 1. Easy updates to the website by our committee with no
coding
2. Ability to have multiple contributors
3. Photo Galleries
4. Forums/Discussions
5. Surveys
6. Scalable: New Users, Content Areas for example
7. Customizable
Needs Assessment 6

7. • Highly customizable
• Allows for multiple users and multiple domains
(including sub-domains)
• Built in SEO, Analytics and framework
• Easy and cheap to use
• Millions of resources (themes, plugins and forums)
• Open Source
• Update once and it populates across multiple platforms,
i.e. Social
Why WordPress? 7

8. WordPress.com WordPress.org
• Hosted on the WordPress • Also known as “self-
servers hosted”
• Gives an address like: • Allows for customization of
tantienhime.wordpress.com, almost everything,
but can have your own including themes, plug-ins,
domain ($) permissions, etc.
• Very little customization • Space is only limited by the
• Can be seen on the hosting provider
WordPress home page • Ability to upload video and
• No Plug-ins audio files “out of the box”
.Com vs. .Org 8

9. Posts vs. Pages
Posts Pages
• Dynamic • Static
• Tags • No Tags
• Used Mostly for events • Used for Contact and
and news About pages
An Important Distinction 9

10. Categories vs. Tags
Categories Tags
• Helps to determine the • Describes the content
structure of the website • Use about 5-7 per post
• Can be used to create
menus much like pages
Another Important
Distinction 10

11. Costs
• $20 for the domain
• $6.95 per month for hosting on BlueHost for one year
• $120 Buddy Press Backup system (Personal expense)
• Total for the organization: Approximately $100 /yr
Free
• Theme
• WordPress.org Platform
Budget 11

12. Channels •Friends Network
You Tube •Can be fed manually or
•Can be it’s own channel Facebook
or Photo automatically
or placed into posts
Gallery •Individuals or Pages
•Anyone connects with
anyone
Twitter •Can be fed manually or
automatically
•No hierarchy
•Professional Network
•Can be fed manually or
LinkedIn
automatically
•Individuals or groups
•Emailing list can be
Posting Direction Flow updated from master
Mailchimp •Self-manages
bouncebacks,
unsubscribes, etc.
12

13. • http://malverncollegiate.com
The Site! 13

14. These haven’t been implemented yet, but this will make the
site exactly where we want it:
• Roles and Capabilities: Enable Contributors to upload
files, such as images
• Static block on the home page: Kind of a welcome
message without it being a sticky post
• Spacing between headers on the Category Pages and
changing the title on those pages. Show the name of the
category rather than “Category Archive”
Wish List of
Customizations 14

15. The site is 95% done. There are still a few things we want to
do:
• Galleries for numerous photos
• Dlvr.it for Social publishing
• MailChimp to manage email mailing lists
• Eventbrite for our 110th Reunion in 2013
Future… 15

16. The End
Questions?
16