Gesher Galicia - Brave New

The most important facts and figures

Users can register on the platform and select their preferred payment method for their account. We have prepared an extensive registration form that allows users to choose the type of subscription and its length.
Members can check their subscription status and access exclusive content directly from their account.
Interested users can donate any amount to the organization by check or PayPal. In the case of payment via Paypal, we have created a script that automatically calculates the commission amount and adds it to the donation amount.
All content from the previous version of the website has been adapted to the new design.
The website has been integrated via API with external databases, which allows users to search historical documents.
Users can browse Galizianer magazine in electronic version.

What was the challenge we faced?

Gesher Galicia is an American non-profit organization conducting historical and genealogical work on the Jewish community in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. It brings together supporters and professionals dealing with the region, providing them with valuable research content and educational materials.

The organization’s previous website had major technical problems and some of its functionalities stopped working. Since Gesher Galicia is partly financed by members’ contributions, these issues were a serious problem. Our goal was to refresh the website taking into account the needs of a specific target group and to restore the necessary functionalities to support the development of Gesher Galicia.

During the project, we worked closely with Paweł, a developer and project manager involved on the client’s side. His skills and knowledge of how websites work made the collaboration much easier.

What was important to us?

Clear navigation and classic design

The recipients of Gesher Galicia are enthusiasts of the topic, historians and genealogists. Some of them are middle-aged people. Using our knowledge of the target group, we have prepared a classic graphic design and intuitive navigation. We have displayed a CTA in the header of the page that allows users to log in and make donations.

Member Portal

Members who pay for a subscription have access to the Member Portal with exclusive content such as podcasts, maps and the organization's magazine. The materials provide added value and encourage users to create accounts on the website.

Focus on donations

The main CTAs on the website are about donations. Users can select any amount and deposit it into the organization's account via PayPal or check. Most of the members are Americans, which is why the client decided to introduce these payment methods.

Access to archives

The website content displays archives with documents and images. Some materials are available to all users. However, access to other content is granted only to subscribers. If a person who does not have an account lands on a website with limited visibility of the page's content, they will see a CTA encouraging them to create an account.

What was the work on the project like?

The Gesher Galicia website is the organization's showcase, aimed at attracting new members and serving as a compendium of knowledge for current members. They have access to exclusive content, visible only after creating an account and paying for a subscription. Some of the archival resources (which enables historical and genealogical research) are integrated with the website via API.

Communication with the client was conducted in English, and our team adjusted to the client’s time zone.

As part of the work, we prepared low/fi mock-ups and designed customer paths. The desired action on the website was to create an account or make a donation, so the creation of the website took these goals into account.

The next step was to prepare several color versions of the main page and then subpages.

The project was coded using Advanced Custom Fields and flexible content (on selected pages), which allows for flexible management of page layout. We used the Paid Membership Subscription plugin to manage subscriptions, and the donation and payment system was built using PayPal. Iframes have been implemented on the website, and some of the content is delivered via API, bypassing the administrative back-end.

Gesher Galicia shows that a well-thought-out and functional NGO website allows the organization to develop and achieve its goals.