This post is the first in what we hope to be an ongoing series of case studies looking at low-cost or no-cost web design solutions being used by business and non-profits who have realized the power of open-source software.
Today I want to highlight FriedmanFacts.com, a site created by Richard Lorenc and Nikki Sullivan, two Chicagoans who wanted their voices heard as controversy erupted around the formation of the Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago in the winter of 2009. Lorenc and Sullivan turned to open-source software to help them defend the legacy of Friedman, winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics and one of the most well-known economists of the 20th century.
Lorenc outlined why the site was started and just how easy it was to build in an email to ReadyMadeWeb:
Student groups brought speakers like journalist Naomi Klein to campus to speak of Friedman’s “disaster capitalism,” and a number of humanities professors sent petitions and letters to the university administration. In response, FriedmanFacts.com illuminated Friedman’s work and legacy.
Based on the free open-source WordPress platform, it includes a petitioning system powered by a free plugin from FreeCharity.org.uk, videos, and a number of posts concerning Friedman, his wife, and the institute itself. Additionally, the site uses a free SEO plugin (All In One SEO pack) to improve exposure, and a plugin to make integration with Google Analytics easier (Google Analytics for WordPress).
The site was made at no cost in a single day and continues to operate today.
Lorenc and Sullivan’s work illustrates how a CMS can be powerful because of its simplicity, not despite it. WordPress’s ease of installation and customization—especially the wide array of plugins available—meant that FriedmanFacts.com could be launched quickly enough to be relevant to the ongoing debate. Lorenc and Sullivan could then focus on telling their side of the story, rather than negotiating with web contractors.
Your business, non-profit, or even group of citizen activists should take a lesson from this example and begin planning on how to make WordPress a key piece of your rapid-response toolkit.
Brands like the NFL, Dow Jones’s All Things D, Time, and CNN have turned to WordPress, the incredibly popular open-source content management system, to build out their web presence. WordPress is famous for the power and ease of customization its brought the world of blogging, but as sites like Time.com demonstrate, the platform can be used for much more.
Non-profit leaders are paying attention to these big-name brands and realizing that if big brand budgets are turning to free, open-source software it must be for reasons other than price.
When Clay Broga of Public Notice, a recently formed non-profit, needed a solution for a new web project, he followed suit and chose WordPress. The result is BankruptingAmerica.org, a visually striking site that delivers news about the state of the American economy and federal fiscal policy.
In an email to ReadyMadeWeb, Broga explained that his focus on delivering news drove his decision to choose WordPress:
So much of our model depends on our ability to hit the news cycle with timely and relevant content. We had heard too many horror stories of organizations completely dependent on outside firms to make even the simplest updates to websites built on firms’ custom, proprietary platforms.
Like our last case study, Richard Lorenc and Nikki Sullivan’s FriedmanFacts.com, Broga was also influenced by the incredibly quick deployment time for WordPress sites:
It took about a month to do the site [...] groups with proprietary platforms estimated much longer schedules.
We needed a platform that would enable us to throw up the nuts and bolts and throw on the bells and whistles over time without drastic revamps.
Those bells and whistles came in the form of WordPress’s library of plugins—the optional add-ons that make WordPress so customizable. Broga outlined how building first and adding on later allowed Public Notice to not only introduce features faster, but also to ensure that they were choosing the right features:
An incremental approach is important. The faster we can get real-world feedback, the more we can deliver products based on what our audience wants.
But Broga stressed that choosing WordPress wasn’t just about short-term deployment concerns, open-source software also met his long-term goals for the site:
We may work with multiple web companies over time for various project and components. This is only possible if everyone speaks the same language.
Broga is spot-on about this unique advantage of open-source systems. According to Water & Stone’s 2009 Open-Source CMS report (download the full PDF), WordPress is not only the most downloaded CMS package on the web with over 400,000 downloads weekly, it also boasts one of the largest developer communities in world. There are literally thousands of WordPress developers listed on freelance listing like Elance and Guru.
This means that non-profits like Public Notice will never be locked-in to a relationship with a vendor. As Broga alluded to in the quote above, too many small businesses and non-profits make the mistake of choosing a proprietary CMS only to find themselves stuck with a vendor that under-performs and fails to meet deadlines.
Quick (and cheap) deployment, easy changes and additions, and the ability to use any one of the thousands of developers available are just a few of the reasons why your non-profit should consider using WordPress as well.
If you have any questions about WordPress implementation or development, please send us an email at info@readymadeweb.com.
