Orpheus

Inspiring the Next Chapter of Growth

The Orpheus Centre supports young disabled adults to develop the skills, confidence and independence they need to pursue fulfilling lives and careers. Founded by Sir Richard Stilgoe, the charity combines specialist education, personal development and the performing arts to help students achieve their aspirations.

As Orpheus prepared to embark on an ambitious capital appeal to build a new Arts Centre and expand its national reach – the organisation recognised that its charity website needed to do much more than provide information.

It needed to inspire supporters, engage potential students, demonstrate impact to funders and corporates, and communicate a bold vision for the future.

The existing website had originally been launched as a minimum viable product following a previous migration. While it provided a solid foundation, it no longer reflected the organisation’s growing ambitions or the increasingly important role the website would play in fundraising, communications and audience engagement.

Different audiences. Different needs.

Orpheus serves a wide range of audiences, each with very different needs.

Prospective students and their families need clear information about courses and admissions. Donors and supporters want to understand the charity’s impact and future plans. Corporate partners are looking for sponsorship, recruitment and engagement opportunities. Volunteers, job applicants, regulators and media organisations all need access to relevant information too.

The challenge was not simply one of design. The website needed to support a growing organisation with increasingly complex communications needs while remaining easy to navigate and accessible to all users.

At the same time, the forthcoming capital appeal placed additional demands on the platform. The website needed to communicate the scale of the organisation’s ambitions, showcase the proposed Arts Centre and provide compelling reasons for supporters to get involved.

The website was also becoming harder for teams to work with day to day. Updating content wasn’t always straightforward, and some of the tools supporting fundraising, events and other activities were no longer keeping pace with the organisation’s ambitions.

Making every journey clearer

We started by sitting down with stakeholders across the organisation and taking a close look at how the website was being used, both by visitors and by the teams managing it.

It quickly became clear that different audiences were looking for very different things, but the existing site wasn’t always making those journeys easy to follow.

A recurring theme was navigation. Whether someone was looking to apply for a course, support the charity, attend an event or learn more about its work, finding the right information often took more effort than it should have.

Working closely with the Orpheus team, we reorganised the site around clearer audience needs, making it easier for visitors to find their way to the information most relevant to them. Navigation, content hierarchy and page structure were all reviewed to create a more intuitive experience.

We also wanted the website to do a better job of reflecting the character of Orpheus itself. The organisation is creative, ambitious and full of energy, and the new design gives much more space for student stories, fundraising campaigns and future plans.

We also wanted to make life easier for the Orpheus team. The new site gives staff much more freedom to update content, create new pages and promote campaigns without needing to work around the limitations of the previous setup.

Fundraising, events and supporter engagement all play an important role in Orpheus’s future plans, so we made sure the website could support those activities as they continue to grow.

A website with room to grow

The new website does a far better job of showcasing what makes Orpheus special – the creativity of its students, the impact of its work and the scale of its ambitions.

Whether someone is considering applying for a course, making a donation or exploring partnership opportunities, the routes through the website are now much clearer.

Information is easier to find, and staff have far more flexibility when it comes to keeping content fresh and up to date.

Key improvements include:

• clearer audience journeys and navigation
• stronger support for fundraising and campaign activity
• a more flexible and scalable CMS
• improved accessibility and mobile usability
• more space for storytelling and impact-focused content
• improved event and engagement functionality
• more control for staff without needing technical expertise
• a platform built to support future growth

The website now gives Orpheus a much stronger platform from which to tell its story, engage supporters and communicate the impact of its work.

Ready for the next act

Building a website was never the end goal.

Orpheus has big plans for the future, including the development of its new Arts Centre and a significant fundraising campaign to help make that vision a reality.

We wanted to make sure the organisation could keep building on what it had, rather than finding itself back at square one a few years down the line.

The new website gives the team the flexibility to launch campaigns, share stories and update content as their plans evolve.

Big ambitions need a website that can keep up. Let’s talk about what yours needs to do next.

www.orpheus.org.uk