Protecting the environment and human health.
The environment is a hot issue for Canadians these days. After several decades of "environmentalism" being synonymous with "wilderness protection", people are starting to recognize that the environment isn't just out in the woods — it's everywhere, and it defines the quality of life for all of us. Environmental Defence — a Toronto-based national ENGO that focuses on "greening cities, protecting people, and saving species" — is a national leader in this emerging and exciting space.
Like many nonprofits, Environmental Defence runs a number of different campaigns with a very small staff. When Communicopia first began our engagement, ED was running separate websites for each of their campaigns — nearly a dozen of them. These sites all looked different, ran on different technology platforms, and did not provide enough "lift" back to the Environmental Defence brand. Moreover, having put so much energy into the campaign sites, their primary site had been neglected, and was not raising enough money to sustain their operations.
The Environmental Defence leadership and communications team was eager to learn and innovate online, and Communicopia led them through our intensive online vision and strategy process to focus on their core brand values, prioritize opportunities, and determine how best to use online tools and online thinking in service of their goals. Early on we determined the best immediate investment was to strengthen their core site and brand. "Our old website didn't really match the profile that we had within the environmental community, with the general public, and with elected officials," explains Jennifer Foulds, ED's Communications Manager. "The new one tells our story much better, and offers clear opportunities for people to donate and get involved."
A new vision was created to manage the relationship between the campaign sites and their home site, and, more importantly, to build participation and engagement into the core all of their campaign plans. "We used to build campaign websites as a bit of an afterthought. Working with Communicopia has helped us to rethink how we use the web to make sure that we're maximizing outreach, fundraising, and engagement — really key things for a charity like us. Now, we're planning our campaigns with the online component at the forefront," reports Foulds.
With the new main site up and running in record time, we turned our attention to their Toxic Nation campaign, which was identified as the best place to try a new high-engagement model. ToxicNation.ca is the public face of ED's important and successful campaign against toxic chemicals, which was instrumental in bringing about Canada's recently announced Chemicals Management Plan — a world-leading, $250M toxic chemical review and registry. Toxic Nation was redesigned in accordance with the new ED brand, making it easily recognizable as a project of their growing organization. It was built using Drupal, an open source content management system, and ED intends to migrate the rest of the campaign sites to the same platform over time.
The new Toxic Nation site is a reflection of ED's commitment to public participation and engagement, and to building relationships with activists and supporters in new ways. Foulds describes it as "an example of how we've learned to make the most of online possibilities. It encourages supporters to share stories, keep informed via the blog, and work with others to get rid of toxics. We're really excited to have this site as the centrepiece of the whole campaign."
We remain inspired by Environmental Defence's openness to adopting "web thinking" — transparency, openness, and constituent engagement across their organization — and are excited about the next phases of "Web 2.0'izing" their organization. We're honoured to help this important new Canadian institution reach more people, engage them in new ways, and raise more funds through the power of the web.
