Design study · Environmental grantmaker · Maryland
A site that starts where the grants do
A redesign concept for a forty-year watershed grantmaker, built around the only question an applicant actually has: which of these programs is for me?
Concept only. Facts and imagery come from the Trust's published site and funded work; this is not the official Chesapeake Bay Trust website.
- Nonprofit website design
- WordPress theme
- Grant pathway finder
- Search or Ask
- Funded-work photography
Chesapeake Bay Trust — open the working site
Case study overview
The problem
A grantmaker running many programs publishes them as a list, because that is how they are administered. But an applicant — a teacher, a small nonprofit, a congregation, a town — cannot tell from program names which one fits their project, their organization type, or their county. They either apply to the wrong thing, ask staff to triage by email, or give up. The list is accurate and nearly useless.
The approach
A Grant Pathway Finder asks three questions — who you are, where you are, what you want to grow — and routes to the right programs, with the full ledger of programs and published deadlines below for anyone who wants to browse rather than be guided. Both modes matter: the finder serves the first-time applicant, the ledger serves the returning one. The Treasure the Chesapeake Bay Plate gets a primary route with real ordering paths and perks rather than being buried under About, since it is both a revenue line and the Trust's most visible public touchpoint. Every photograph is the Trust's own funded work — living shorelines, student plantings — so the imagery is evidence rather than decoration, and tidewater bands carry the navigation.
The result
Twelve routes as a real WordPress theme with a static preview, a three-question pathway finder over the full program ledger, and a masthead Search or Ask box across a demonstration corpus.
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