The Dogstar Foundation – an interim website to tide them over

When Fat Beehive’s Andy Ledger visited our Sri Lanka office to assist the team out there he was saddened to see the number of dogs living on the streets, and gained an appreciation and insight into Dogstar: a charity set up to prioritise the welfare of these animals, for which the FB team are developing a website.

WordPress Developer (and dog person) Andy hadn’t worked on the project, but as he found himself feeding a particular dog on the beach each day he made it his business to find out about the work this client was undertaking. Founded in 2006 by formerly London-based husband and wife team Sam and Mark, who, after witnessing the plight of the unbelievable numbers of street dogs whilst on holiday in Sri Lanka, set up their organisation and never permanently returned to the UK. The charity feeds, vaccinates, neuters and spays thousands of dogs (cats too!).

Fat Beehive’s Emma Bailey, Project Manager for this work, explained how Dogstar’s original website was wholly inadequate, so an interim site was set up just so they could continue to function. 

After an initial period of UX and IA content workshops, led by Anna Alabau (Fat Beehive’s Head of Strategy, UX, Research and Design) the main build is now underway. Emma highlights the setting up of a tailored integrated payments page to allow donations from 3 platforms: Stripe, PayPal and GoCardless, as opposed to using the existing inbed, as one of the most valuable features. 

Andy came back to his own dog in the UK with his phone storage seriously challenged by the number of photos and videos he had shot of his beach pal and all the thousands of other dogs he saw all over Sri Lanka, both rurally and even in capital Colombo. Fat Beehive are proud to be working with this caring organisation who continue to save the lives of animals in Sri Lanka.

www.dogstarfoundation.com