Case Study: Website & Event Marketing for a Small Nonprofit

Mockup showing Fair Housing Association of CT's website on a monitor, laptop, tablet and mobile phone. (Link to actual website is included in post).

The Fair Housing Association of Connecticut is a small, volunteer-run nonprofit comprised of of fair housing officers, housing developers, advocates, and others. Their primary activity is hosting an annual statewide Fair Housing Conference. However, they had an outdated website and were still using paper registration. I built them a simple but much more modern WordPress website primarily to communicate more clearly about their conference and allow participants to register more easily. I continue to maintain the back end of the website and update the content as needed for the annual conference.

E-Newsletters

Image of CT Fair Housing Center Fall 2018 E-Newsletter. An attractive custom-designed heading is at the top, followed by excerpts of newsletter stories and images. (Post contains PDF of actual newsletter.)

While at the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, I started the Center’s first quarterly e-newsletter using Constant Contact. I wrote nearly all of the content, but also sometimes worked with other staff to have them contribute stories about their work. I designed a custom header for the newsletter using Canva and switched to a mobile-responsive design to ensure readability on all devices. Later, I linked newsletter story excerpts to full articles on the Center’s blog to drive more website traffic. I carefully maintained the Center’s email list and used results from each email (open and click rates) to inform changes going forward. The newsletter was distributed to a list of ~1,500 readers (including fair housing advocates, donors and funders, and elected officials) and typically had a ~20% open rate, which is about the industry average.

Year-End Fundraising Email

Shows a preview of a year-end fundraising email I wrote. Click through to read PDF version.

Year-End Fundraising email I wrote this year-end fundraising appeal email in 2018 while managing development and communications for the Connecticut Fair Housing Center. It featured artwork from the Center’s fair housing poster contest for youth Click on the image to read the full PDF version of the CT Fair Housing Center’s 2018 year-end email. CT Fair Housing […]