We're proud of our work —
here are a few reasons why.

Organizations struggle to find volunteers — even though there are many people that want to help.

Often understaffed, small charitable organizations have limited resources for finding and recruiting volunteers. Traditionally they can rely on the same committed individuals, while legions of other prospective volunteers remain untapped. What’s needed? A tool that bridges that gap — and enables organizations at the same time.

After working with Calgary-based Propellus for several years, we got an insight into the world of non-profit organizations and the challenges that they face on a daily basis. Thousands of tiny organizations provide an invaluable fabric of resources to their communities, despite operating on a shoe-string budget and a skeleton staff. Finding, evaluating and communicating with prospective volunteers is time-consuming. Aspiring volunteers face hurdles as well; every organization has different standards, requirements and application forms.

We took on the challenge, and designed the VolunteerConnector from the ground up. Starting with consultation with the organizations themselves, we developed a clear understanding of the problems that they face — not only in finding volunteers, but in managing, scheduling, and retaining them.

The solution: a custom built platform that gives organizations the tools they need, and allows the public to find them. Prospective volunteers can easily find opportunities that meet their values, skills, and interests. Behind the scenes, organizations have a rich set of tools to evaluate the applicants, approve them, and even schedule their volunteer time.

Saskatchewan's largest cultural funding agency had a challenge.

Funding projects for over 150 organizations across the culturally diverse and vibrant province is an important job —and a big one. SaskCulture needed to move their paper application process to an online system, and came to us for assistance.

Each SaskCulture grant application goes through several stages, from the initial request through to the final reporting. The entire process is complex, and has a lot of steps; however, it was critical that the applicant was guided through this journey in the most streamlined way possible, and that the platform was accessible to everyone.

We started the process by asking a lot of questions, diving into all of the granting programs and exploring their unique quirks. This enabled us to sketch out an outline of the ideal system that would capture all of their possible needs, and use that to research all of the options that were on the market. After some in-depth consultation, it was decided that none of the existing off-the-shelf solutions would meet the complex requirements of the SaskCulture grant offerings — they needed a custom-built solution, tailor-made to the needs of their community.

The online granting platform provides tools for SaskCulture to manage the entire granting system, managing applications as they travel from initial application through jury adjudication to their final reporting. The statistics around the grant funding is collected, aggregated and shared annually, bringing insight into how funding is distributed.

In order to work for SaskCulture, this online platform needed to be accessible and welcoming for their ever-changing and diverse community of applicants. By building a solid and versatile foundation, the organization is able to respond to changes and adapt as new opportunities emerge — and we’re excited to help them along the way.

SaskCulture also required a new marketing platform to connect with their members, funders, and the larger cultural community. We created a new web design and architecture to house the extensive content available, while creating custom solutions including a Grant Finder Directory and a Success Story infrastructure. The result is a highly structured and adaptable platform designed to grow to meet SaskCulture’s expanding needs.

Clarity of messaging and design helps give students the equal opportunity to succeed.

When Foothills Academy first approached us, their existing website was laden with content, but was cumbersome and confusing to navigate. Our challenge was to take their many complex offerings and provide a showcase for their inspiring philosophy: that all students with Learning Disabilities have exceptional potential and can achieve great success.

The project started with in-depth consultation with the team at Foothills. We quickly found that there was content on the site that was no longer necessary — and that the useful content was often buried several layers deep, and hard to find.

Working closely with the Foothills team, a new taxonomy and structure was designed for the site. The challenge then was to create a visual language that would help differentiate different types of content. In addition to running a full school, Foothills has a rich set of programming, including online courses, camps, workshops, events and more; it was key to have visual cues that helped the visitor clearly discern those.

Visitors to the Foothills site are likely to be more neurodiverse than the average website visitor, and accessibility was a key consideration. In this case this included traditional accessibility —clean and legible typography, thoughtful use of contrast and colour, and regular testing— but clarity and concision of messaging was also very important.

Public school websites are often bland and institutional. When we visited Foothills Academy, we found it to be a thriving place, alive with colour, sound, and artwork. The new site design takes advantage of their photography to communicate the colourful and welcoming Foothills experience.

Who would have guessed that one of the best music festivals in North America would be here in Calgary?

We’re fortunate to have many great festivals here — including Sled Island, one of Canada’s most important music and arts events. With literally hundreds of artists playing venues across the city over a week, it can be daunting for fans. The festival site functions as a platform for artist discovery, guiding visitors through planning their Sled experience.

Over the last 15 years, Sled Island has built a reputation as a music curator, championing obscure artists from the fringes. Visitors come from all over the world to take in the festival, which encompasses music, film, comedy, visual art and many other events. The sheer volume of entertainment can be overwhelming to the prospective visitor, and the festival site needs to both introduce fans to new artists and help them navigate the complex range of offerings.

We’ve worked with the organizers to create a platform with impressive durability and longevity. Pursuing cost-effective solutions was always important to the small organization, and building a foundation for a long-term solution has allowed the organization to grow their capacity and their production over time.

The most challenging part of the festival is presenting the incredibly complex schedule in an intuitive manner; with so many venues and artists, communicating travel time and time conflicts is key. We worked closely with festival staff to research the options, with the goal of setting the standard for an online festival schedule that is friendly and easy to use. Visitors can quickly build playlists based on genre, and then add them to their personalized festival planner, easy to refer to when hopping from club to club.