THE AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND
Nonprofit Organization
Denver, CO
The American Indian College Fund is the largest charity and leading advocate for providing Native students access to higher education. They believe that “education is the answer.” Founded in 1989, the American Indian College Fund invests in students and tribal college education to transform lives and communities. Through hard work and dedication to their cause, The American Indian College Fund is one of the nation’s top 100 charities named by the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance.
David Pacella, Website Manager, recently took over ownership of the website for the American College Fund and was in need of a firm the College Fund could trust to transform their customer’s web experience.
The American Indian College Fund turned to OpenMedium for assistance in migrating their website to OpenMedium’s Enterprise WordPress Platform and rebuilding the underlying architecture from the ground up.
GOALS
- To provide an easy-to-maintain website infrastructure to support long-term growth.
- To provide a secure and scale-able infrastructure to mitigate risk and vulnerability.
- To unify internal stakeholders by providing an end-to-end website operations workflow and structured deployment process.
- To develop a website content architecture that is functional, fast, easy to use, and well-supported.
- To provide expert guidance and align internal stakeholders on industry best practices.
- Maintain the complexities of the website so they could focus on their organization, not daily maintenance of their website.
- To improve the speed of content publishing by providing integrated service desk support.
SOLUTION
The American Indian College Fund was operating several staging and live websites that were running different technology tools, which created management and security issues. They were also finding it difficult to update their websites and agree to the vision and structure. To develop an infrastructure and process that met their goals, OpenMedium consolidated their portfolio of sites into one unified experience. This resulted in a website that was easier to use, secure, and that appeals to audiences, which strengthens their brand identity.
RESULTS
The American Indian College Fund’s website migration to OpenMedium has improved site performance, management, and security. Through a better web experience and underlying infrastructure, the website experienced over 200% increase in user engagement, with a solid percentage of first-time website visitors. This indicates new customers are able to find and search the American Indian College Fund’s website with ease and are engaging longer on the website.
Key Technology Features
- DEV to LIVE Deployment Workflow
- Git Version Control
- Security Hardening & Monitoring
- Backup Policies
- Integrated Service Desk System
- All-Inclusive Software Licensing
- 3rd Party Vendor Integrations
From a technical perspective, by consolidating multiple environments into one site, OpenMedium delivered a unified and sophisticated CMS that allows for efficient maintenance of the website, stable updates, and quick delivery of new content as needed. In addition, OpenMedium was able to mitigate vulnerabilities through their advanced security layers.
From a process-oriented perspective, the previous website hadn’t been managed efficiently, which resulted in difficulties for the various teams to agree on website priorities. To solve this communication issue, OpenMedium created an integrated ticketing system including cross-functional collaboration tools. This has proven to better unify internal teams, improve collaboration, and more easily prioritize projects and tasks.
“We have strong personalities who are passionate about what they do– everyone believes their work is the most urgent,” stated David Pacella, Website Manager at the American Indian College Fund. He continued, “the workflow and ticketing system allows our teams to be more proactive about submitting the work and fully explaining details and purpose, which helps us to be more effective in managing the site and delivering effectively to our audiences.”
Communication is fundamental to the great delivery of any website. By listening to the needs of the American Indian College Fund team, OpenMedium identified both business process issues, as well as the need for improved technology solutions. Coordination and collaboration played a key role in creating clear processes, effectively planning, and implementation for success.
“OpenMedium’s team has worked with us now through many projects,” Pacella comments. “Their experience shows as they work to fulfill our unique goals while making sure the technology continues to support compliance and industry standards. This allows us the freedom to focus more on business needs instead of technology issues.”
OpenMedium is hired based upon the ability to listen carefully and understand the needs of clients, creating value and building trust in the process. While OpenMedium’s technology offerings provide a more tangible success factor for its clients, their teams’ transparent approach, professional communication, and experience are what facilitates the complete support their clients revere.
ABOUT OPENMEDIUM
OpenMedium helps fast-moving companies improve performance, optimize digital experiences, and streamline technology operations. Founded in 2010, it has continued to grow by delivering trustworthy and transparent communication with its clients. For more information about OpenMedium, visit www.OpenMedium.biz.
