Soapbox Engage Blog

At PICnet, we provide a unique environment for non-profits to build their online presence. Our high-touch, high-quality service is what separates from the crowd and keeps our client list expanding.

Interested in joining our team as a Project Manager in our San Francisco office? Read on!

Earlier in March, PICnet launched a new site for ACCION and their new program called "The Smart Campaign." They needed a simple site that would be eventually be available in Russian, Spanish, French, and Arabic.  The site also needed to host ACCION's toolkit of resources, available in all languages.  Users will be able to find valuable information that serve as guides and best practices to those looking to participate in micro-finance.

What I like best on this site is the humanistic feel the homepage design presents. Lisa Mattei-McDonald, my client contact at BI, was introduced into this project midway.  After her predecessor left, Lisa did an extraordinary job catching up quickly to all things web related.  I applaud her success at keeping the project cool and calm even during her own discovery of her role and the unforeseen requirements that the project took on.

It was a full blown effort with four vendors involved! Boston Interactive hired PICnet to implement their design.  Strategy and communications firm  M+R was also involved.  And Democracy in Action came in at the very end to help The Smart Campaign's constituents active on the site.

The Prevention Institute wanted to overhaul their website, which was a combination of a few different sites, but all had different site architectures. Working with our design partner and neighbor, FreeRange Graphics, PICnet streamlined the site's navigation, making it more SEO and user friendly.

Just in time to celebrate the birth of some our most famous U.S. presidents, PICnet launched a new Soapbox website for the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC). CSPC was looking to improve their site architecture so their constituents and followers could more easily locate the valuable publications the organization produces. They also wanted to sharpen up their outdated image.  Through their new Soapbox site, they can even receive online donations through PayPal!

Emily Shaftel was my point-of-contact at CSPC and she was an amazing coordinator for their side.  I always received a quick turnaround, clear and detailed questions and she was very technically savvy with an eye for pushing the website to its limits.  She actually departed CSPC on the day of the launch to go and volunteer for a year in Thailand! Emily definitely made an impact before her departure.

A couple weeks ago, we launched a really great new site for a great and deserving organization - the Turtle Survival Alliance. Now this is a TSA I can get behind! The TSA has been transforming passion for turtles into effective conservation action since 2001. They are involved in some pretty amazing conservation efforts all over the world thanks to their wide network of supporters. For example, check out this incredible story on the rescue of the world's only known wild Rafetus swinhoei (Yangtze giant softshell turtle) in Vietnam.

This project reinforced some valuable lessons for me:

1) Sometimes it's the little things

One little thing we did on this site that made a big difference was using custom action buttons throughout for Buy Now, Donate Now and Join Now. What an easy small thing it is to replace the standard PayPal buttons to make a more compelling and custom-looking shop.

2) "By your powers combined" (thanks to Captain Planet for this valuable wisdom)

The TSA's site combines the super-powers of some pretty cool third party tools that complement and extend Soapbox. These include PayPal for donations and the shop, Wufoo for membership applications and tracking, Constant Contact for e-newsletters, Embedr for the video gallery, and social media/sharing tools.

At PICnet, we aren't just about creating snazzy new websites with sleek design and fancy features. We're also here to help with your website's basic needs, like in the case of Port Jobs. We recently worked with Port Jobs' database contractor to automate Microsoft Access reporting to display current job postings in near-real time on their Airport Jobs site.

Port Jobs chose us after a competitive bid process in which they considered several firms.  Our functionality and a previous relationship with the business favored us in the selection process. But the database revamping is only Phase I - we will now be working on redeveloping Port Jobs in Soapbox, under the same template.

Although this is a rare example, the project was fairly smooth in part because I already understood how their old database was set up - because I had created it when I was an employee with Port Jobs. This made it a lot easier to understand the goal of the database integration, and the limitations and opportunities moving from the current ASP driven site to Soapbox.  In the end, this prior knowledge proved fruitful in a great solution for the client.