Wildcats Pounce On The Web!
By: Todd Withrow | December 25th, 2014
About The Organization:
The Dunwoody High School Alumni Association members graduated from the high school located in Dunwoody, Georgia, an incorporated city located just north of Atlanta. The school, which has about 1400 students, has a wildcat as its mascot and its colors are red, white, and blue. Notable alumni of Dunwoody High School include Kip Pardue who starred in “Remember The Titans,” Jeff Arnold, founder of the webmd.com website, and TV host Ryan Seacrest. Dunwoody High School Alumni are justly proud of the academic, fine arts, and sports programs in which they participated during their tenures at the school.
Client Challenges & Goals:
The Dunwoody High School Alumni Association recognized that their school faces the challenges as all schools in America today: there is not enough money given to schools to support their programs. Therefore, the primary goal for the organization and the custom NicheLocal website was to raise money for the school by soliciting alumni contributions. Additional goals for the website included:
*Tell Dunwoody alumni about current happenings at the school and the progress being made at the school in academic and scholarship programs and athletic facilities.
*Provide a calendar of events for future class reunions and fundraising events.
*Allow alumni to register on the website and become part of the alumni database. Alumni would be able to contact classmates directly through emails.
*There would be no fees to join the alumni site.
NicheLocal Proposed Solution For The Dunwoody High School Alumni Association:
The Atlanta Website Design Team suggested the following to help the alumni association to achieved its goals:
*Custom Website Design
*Informational Pages which feature alumni registration, event information, “find a classmate” page, what’s happening at Dunwoody High, and Dunwoody High School Community Association information.
*Content Management System which would allow the alumni association to change, edit or delete pages. NicheLocal included training in the solution package so the alumni could learn how to use the content management system. Atlanta Website Design used Joomla and Community Builder to set-up the CMS.
*The custom website will allow alumni to contribute to the association online via a secure page.
*NicheLocal designed a private social network for the Dunwoody High School Alumni Association. Features of the network allow alumni to sign-up, create a personal profile, communicate with other alumni, and create their own blogs. The association can communicate with its membership via mass mailings and can even add their own advertisements…another means of raising money for the school.
*Website Hosting.
Project Outcomes:
Pam Tallmadge of the Dunwoody High School Alumni Association tells us, “NicheLocal has a personal touch when it comes to building custom websites. All of us who belong to The Dunwoody Community Association…The Wildcat Fund… are novices when it comes to navigating and maneuvering around websites. Thank goodness for Todd and his team! NicheLocal not only helped us to develop a clear and functioning website, they trained us how to use our site. Todd’s prices were affordable…and through our site, we are raising money for our school.”
Unique Aspects of the Dunwoody High School Alumni Association Project:
NicheLocal installed several different features on the custom website in order to help the association accomplish its goals of increasing membership, membership participation, and fund-raising on the site:
*NicheLocal developed a social networking site in which alumni can join the site and submit contact information, and keep in touch with fellow alumni.
*The Contact Management System allows the association website administrators to make changes to the website.
*The custom design website encourages alumni to contribute to their school online through a secure payment system. NicheLocal worked with our merchant partner, Equitable Payments (www.equitablepayments.com) for the merchant services.
*Website Address: www.DunwoodyHighAlumni.com