Annenberg Foundation Website Redesign

Greater website engagement and flexibility

The Annenberg Foundation was looking for an overhaul of its website to create a framework for greater and more engaging storytelling capabilities, while at the same time, achieving new possibilities for site managers that enabled them to easily update content, add pages, and make design revisions to the site whenever they needed to.

Innovation, Community, and Compassion at Work

Established in 1989, the Annenberg Foundation has emerged as one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world, and is driven by a purpose that it describes as, “Addressing the critical issues of our time through innovation, community, and compassion.” The Los Angeles-based family foundation’s initiatives are directed toward raising awareness, sparking new possibilities, and offering financial advancement to critical endeavors that are largely centered around the arts, climate, and animal rights.

Flexibility for the Future

Drawing upon a successful and long-standing relationship, the Annenberg Foundation reached out to Solid Digital for consultation and support in creating an entirely new approach to its website that offered visitors a more educational and informational experience. The initiative incorporated a rebuilding of the WordPress site over to Elementor page-builder. Adoption of this new capability is empowering Annenberg’s site managers with the flexibility to easily make updates to the content, switch up designs, and add new pages without the need for any coding or web development expertise.

New Fuel for Message Amplification

The site’s greater emphasis on storytelling stands to bring new levels of empathy and humanity to the causes that the Annenberg Foundation is committed to supporting. This, combined with a design revamp and a foundation for greater flexibility on the part of site managers, are viewed as critical factors for amplifying the foundation’s mission and messaging.

Collaborative Engagement

While design talent and creativity tends to be at the forefront of Solid Digital’s web development process, the Annenberg Foundation’s in-house design capabilities and clear vision for what the site needed to achieve, drove a high level of agility on Solid Digital’s part.

Design was a collaborative endeavor. Solid Digital oversaw the design, lent creative direction, and offered guidance concerning user experience (UX) best practices, as well as the assurance of mobile responsiveness. The Annenberg Foundation design team provided the initial vision and executed much of the design.

Foundation for a Multi-Tasking Site

The Annenberg Foundation’s new website is structured to do far more heavy lifting than ever before. With the right taxonomies and structure in place, search functionality has been enhanced and provides a framework for a richer, more substantive user experience. The site now serves as an in-depth information resource.

With a greater focus on SEO, the number and quality of site visits are positioned for a continuous upward trajectory, serving to increase visibility of the causes that the Annenberg Foundation supports, while building community connections.

Success Factors

A depth and breadth of excitement powered both the development and the launch of the site which is breathing new life into Annenberg Foundation endeavors for 2021 and beyond.

Close communication among two teams that had different processes kept the project moving forward within a framework that optimized the distinct value that both teams had to offer.

The Annenberg Team is a joy to work with. The synergistic working relationship and success of the initial website initiative has propelled the relationship forward toward various additional engagements.