MassIPL

Inspiration

Through conversation with the leaders at MassIPL, we learned that the organization is looking for more effective ways to increase the outreach of its energy-saving program to attract a more diverse pool of faith-based communities and individuals who care about climate justice. It also strives to be a thought leader in educating the faith-based communities on the necessity and benefits of reducing their carbon footprint. However, its current positioning makes the organization looks like a religious organization that serves a relatively exclusive group of houses of worship, which puts constraints on its ability to increase member diversity and gain access to funding channels. We quickly realized that these challenges present opportunities. We created a brand new website that showcases their unique secular position and an effective tool, the environmental stewardship calculator, that will drastically increase member engagements.

What it does and how it can help

The new website we created offers a brand-new look that is easy on the eyes and friendly to read. We made the messages we were hoping to convey clearly and powerfully without giving the impression of being a religious organization. We added more content to the website, such as blogs, to improve search engine optimization while educating and entertaining our readers at the same time. We made the interface clean and easy to navigate.

Another great tool we developed is the environmental stewardship calculator. It will be an excellent resource for our prospective members to see their current carbon footprint and how much it can be reduced by taking on different projects based on their budget. With just a couple of inputs and clicks, a person can see the estimated carbon emissions. The calculator then goes one step further to recommend things that the house of worship can do today, such as replacing lighting with LED light bulbs. This can help MassIPL turn more leads into prospects and encourage houses of worship to reach out to us for assistance.

Additionally, because the calculator asks for the zip code of the user, MassIPL can map out the hot areas and focus on reaching out to houses of worship that share the same zip code. This will help MassIPL to do outreach more effectively.

What we each did

We want to take the time to recognize the fantastic work each of our team members did. Anita Yip was our brain who created a strategic analysis on how we can reposition the organization to highlight its secular nature and increase member engagement. Leah Fernandez was our creative director, coming up with beautiful design flows for the website. Weidong Wang and Jingqian Cheng were our technical core, working relentlessly to turn our ideas into reality and delivered a perfect product within a short period of time. Kyle Liu researched and outlined the components for the calculator and served as our project manager focusing on the packaging and pitch of the hack.

How we built it

MassIPL’s new website was created on Weebly. The design process started in Figma before we brought it to life through our development process. For the front-end of the new website, we build the main body of the website with the help of Weebly’s design capabilities. We then created links in between web pages to realize the design flow and make sure it is convenient and clear to the users. For the calculator, we built an algorithm that returns results based on the different variables.

Challenges we ran into

It took us some time to figure out the correct logic behind the website design. Our goal was to make the website as easy to use as possible while getting our message across. The process of creating the calculator and incorporating it into the website was also a challenge as none of us had previous experience. The purpose of the calculator is to increase user engagement, so we wanted to make sure the questions we ask can do exactly that. Moreover, we were careful about finding the right balance between getting our image across as a secular organization and the fact that we are providing services to faith-based organizations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are glad that we built a fresh website whose purpose and content complement the existing website well. It helps the organization to promote its secular image and brings in traffic from not only houses of worship, but also individuals who care about climate justice in general. We wanted to simplify facing the issue MassIPL addresses. The calculator was a key component is doing this because successfully tackling energy inefficiency can seem like a difficult mountain to climb but by basing our suggestions around each unique situation, houses of worship will be able to take incremental steps leading to substantial and sustainable impact which is our goal!

What we learned

This is our first time working with Weebly to create a website. As with any new program, there was a steep learning curve, made more difficult by the short time period. Additionally, after Larry Goldberg's inspiring Keynote, we were prompted to explore how we could make our design as ADA compliant as possible and while this hack may not have been “Born Accessible”, a majority of the design components had been completed beforehand, edits were made prior to the implementation. Additionally, for half our team, this was the first time hearing about MassIPL and the bigger movement combating energy inefficiency. So we prioritized taking the time to educate ourselves about the connection between faith-based organizations and climate change and the different ways they can make an impact.

What's next for MassIPL

MassIPL will continue to do outreach to educate more and more houses of worship on their duties to protect the earth and help them one step at a time. We see MassIPL capable of wielding the power and support from faith-based communities to demand meaningful and impactful social and political changes.

Built With

• adobe
• canva
• figma
• premiere
• weebly