Texas Climbers Coalition

The Texas Climbers Coalition (TCC) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that advocates for access and helps maintain climbing areas in Texas. TCC was formed to encompass all of Texas and is an affiliate of the Access Fund, a national advocacy organization. Its work has supported Travis County’s acquisition and preservation of private lands, negotiated access to Hueco Tanks in El Paso, and recently acquired and permanently protected a limestone bluff in San Antonio, TX.

Problem

Aged design and hard to use editor

Upon my hiring as Programs Associate for the TCC, I was tasked with updating the website’s look and navigation. After hearing complaints from board members attempting to make edits and updates to the site, I quickly discovered that the editor was outdated and frustrating at best; unusable at worst.

Information was not easily visible

Memberships are the core bread and butter to how the Texas Climbers Coalition gets its funding. In the website’s previous design, the “become a member” option was hidden within the navigation, creating a host of missed opportunities. I knew that this was one of the most important call to actions and had to take on a bigger spotlight in the redesign.

process

Identified a main goal to center design

After exploring the entirety of the website’s pages and offerings, I broke down its purpose though levels of importance:

1. Memberships and donations

2. Texas climbing education and information

3. News/events

The TCC’s most important goal is increasing memberships, but the old design hid the membership page. I decided I would be highlighting it on the front page and in several other relevant pages using a friendly call to action button beneath membership information. To further entice memberships, on the main membership page, I linked to membership benefits, that were previously not displayed anywhere. Additionally visitors would be able to become a member by clicking on the “join” button highlighted in the navigation.

These changes had quick positive impacts. By giving visitors the ability to join in different areas of the website, the TCC saw a high increase in memberships and very positive conversion rates.

Next steps

Introduced in-house event registration

One of the biggest fundraising opportunities for the TCC is a yearly outdoor climbing competition that includes music, vendors, a silent auction, raffle, and a dinner at the end of the night. All money raised helps fund most projects for the year. Registration for the event had never been handled in-house; the new website migration would also for that to change.

Opening a more streamlined online registration increased registrants for the year and helped create an easier method of bookkeeping the day of the event. We had a total of 81 registrants sign up online, and the TCC raised over $3,000 in online sales alone.

Revamped the donations page

An exciting feature we were able to introduce was allowing visitors to sign up for monthly donations. Additionally, the new donation page could now auto-generate a tax-deductible receipt and allow people to choose what project they wanted their money to go towards.

reflections

Proper hierarchy is make or break in terms of conversions

Taking the time to discover how we needed to lay out the hierarchy of information and following that plan when creating the redesign improved conversion rates by leaps and bounds. I made sure that all content was easily accessible for our power users, but prioritized the three most important elements and worked the rest of the design around them. Our conversion rates speak truth: visitors that click the “join” or “become a member” buttons are ready to follow through. We had simply needed to make sure we gave them that opportunity in the first place.