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Our project is to fund a new website for El Centro Hispano, a White Plains, NY, non-profit organization. El Centro annually helps thousands of Latinos of all ages in White Plains and beyond with a wide range of services that support literacy, education, and workforce development.
Founded in 1974, El Centro's mission is to assist, support, and strengthen Hispanic families; to help them become self-sufficient; and to ease their transition into their new culture while maintaining and enriching their own.
El Centro's annual budget is about $650,000, which is supported primarily by private fundraising and grants. As such, it is vital to have strong communications tools to attract and inform donors and funders, and a vibrant, up-to-date website is a key part of this.
The existing website was developed about 20 years ago and uses a platform that is cumbersome to update. El Centro has a small staff, with one full-time executive director and four part-time assistants (not including instructors in the various classes offered). One of the assistants is responsible for the website but the outmoded technology makes updates an onerous task.
This grant will support a new website that looks contemporary and is easy to maintain. White Plains Rotary is very fortunate to have as a member Larry Woodard, President of Graham Stanley Advertising (GSA), a digital media company that serves major companies but is also dedicated to designing websites for small non-profits at very reasonable cost. Our Rotary will work with GSA and El Centro to develop a work order for the new website within the $4,000 maximum budget, that also includes training for El Centro staff and support post-launch. GSA will use WordPress, a user-friendly platform that requires no coding skills or technical expertise.
White Plains Rotary has worked with El Centro frequently over the years. Rotarians have assisted at food/clothing distributions, raised funds for sheets and towels for new immigrants, and helped fund educational programs. Our member Nick Wolff has been on the board of El Centro for many years. This grant project will provide opportunities for Rotarians to participate. One of our members is an excellent photographer and has volunteered to take pictures for the new website. Project manager Libby Hollahan will recruit several other members who are active in the non-profit/fundraising area to be a sounding board/reviewer of the content and appearance of the website as it is in development.
As mentioned above, El Centro views its website primarily as a vital external communication tool for funders and donors, which is essential for the organization's sustainability. It currently doesn't use the website to inform clients of class schedules or events (uses social media instead). It also doesn't use the website to link to on-line training for its clients, but the staff will explore what might be appropriate as it develops content for the new website.
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