The Princeton University Rowing Program selected us to help build their online community. They have several types of readers and wanted to be able to engage all of them with relevant content. There is a great deal of public information, such as race schedule, directions, results, pictures and videos. There is information for potential recruits on the programs, the university and the requirements.
There is also information which only a select group of people should be able to see: the current rowers and parents want to be able to see their workouts and communicate with coaches. The alumni want to share personal updates and contact information with each other, not the entire world. The coaches want to send out newsletters, but with the ability to select who is allowed to receive them.
Finally, the most important part was that the coaches need to run the site without the help of programmers. They need to be able to write and format new articles, update email addresses, adjust menus, upload pictures and videos – all without ever leaving the site or having to understand HTML.
For this project, we chose Drupal, our favorite open-source Content Management System and designed a theme based on Marinelli. This allowed us to modify every detail of the site to meet the specific requirements of the client while at the same time not having to redesign the wheel. Ultimately, the coaches are very satisfied with the look and feel as well as the ease-of-use.
What’s next? We will be integrating CiviCRM into the back end of the website so that the Princeton University Rowing Association can track and manage their donor database. It’s an exciting project and we are looking forward to it!
Please feel free to check out the website at: http://crew.princeton.edu and contact us with any questions or comments.