Design study · Resilience innovation nonprofit · Virginia
Because tomorrow can't wait
A redesign concept for an organization that funds near-term flood solutions, where four audiences arrive at one site with incompatible needs and one shared deadline.
Concept redesign of riseresilience.org by Stoa. Facts come from the organization's published site; this is not the official RISE Resilience Innovations website.
- Nonprofit website design
- Challenge applications
- Progressive enhancement
- Search
- Accessibility
RISE Resilience Innovations — open the working site
Case study overview
The problem
A challenge-based funder has a website whose value collapses to one thing at a time: whichever challenge is currently open, and how long is left to apply. Around that, four audiences — applicants, funders and sponsors, partners, alumni and awardees — need entirely different material from the same pages. Most such sites lead with mission language and bury the open challenge, which is the only item with a deadline attached.
The approach
The current challenge leads the page, with the four audiences given their own clearly marked front doors beneath it rather than being funnelled through a shared About. Search-first access covers challenges, applicant resources, and the impact record. The impact section is deliberately built to render correctly before JavaScript runs — for an organization whose credibility rests on its record, a set of numbers that briefly shows nothing, or nothing at all on a constrained connection, is a real failure rather than a cosmetic one. Funded innovators are shown at work, which does more for applicant confidence than a description of the program.
The result
Eight routes covering challenges, applying, resources, impact, about, and accessibility, with search across the site and a progressively enhanced impact record.
Have something similar in mind?
Need a civic tool with this shape?
Stoa designs and ships resident-facing tools, internal workflows, and public service interfaces that stay fast, legible, and accessible from day one.