Since 1988, the Arlington Food Assistance Center remains dedicated to its simple but critical mission of obtaining and distributing groceries, directly and free of charge, to people living in Arlington, VA, who cannot afford to purchase enough food to meet their basic needs.
While hunger might not seem to be an issue in a wealthy county like Arlington, the high cost of living, combined with the current economic situation causes many families struggle to make ends meet. Supplemental groceries from AFAC mean that families can remain in their homes, workers can stay on the job, children are ready to learn, and mothers and babies have the nutrition they need. AFAC helps relieve the food budgets of our clients, thereby allowing them to make other necessary purchases without sacrificing their health and nutrition needs.
Tara Claeys and Evelyn Powers, working together as Nice Work, LLC, designed a new logo and full branding for AFAC, and also designed and developed a new WordPress website. This website has resulted in a dramatic increase in website donations and community engagement.
Prior to working with us, AFAC was using a third-party donation software to collect online donations. This meant they were losing about 10% of each donation to fees. To make matters worse, as the third party collected donations from AFAC donors, those same donors were solicited for support from the vendor for its own charity upon checkout and throughout the year.
We removed the third-party system and created a donation platform on AFAC’s website which used Gravity Forms to collect online donations via PayPal. The result: a 33% increase in web gifts for AFAC, and AFAC retaining sole propriety of their donor data. We also created a custom program to allow the community to create personal fundraisers to share with their friends, co-workers and families. You can read more about this custom functionality here.