Ohana of Howard County

OhanaHC: Ohana of Howard County

Non-Profits Brand Identity UX Design Information Architecture Content Strategy Conversion Optimization Visual Storytelling

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Overview

Ohana of Howard County pairs each student with at least two mentors beginning in ninth grade, and a wider community that stays in their corner for up to ten years. Recruiting mentors is their first goal, and their old site worked against it. It opened with a stock photo and the words “Our Dual Mission,” asked nothing of a first-time visitor, told search engines to stay away, and sent email that was flagged as phishing.

We took Ohana from discovery to launch in four months. The new site opens with Ohana’s own students and one clear ask: Become a Mentor. Every partner high school has its own village page. Gifts are made on the site, one time or monthly, and a custom integration connects the site to Ohana’s membership system, adding every donor automatically and showing upcoming events in Ohana’s own design.

For the first time, Ohana can measure every action that matters to the mission, from mentor applications and student referrals to gifts, in a plain-language reporting dashboard that has tracked results since launch day. The site scores a perfect 100 on Lighthouse for both accessibility, up from 91, and SEO.

[01] The Challenge

Ohana’s first goal is recruiting mentors, but their site led with the organization instead of the young people it serves, and asked nothing of a first-time visitor.

A stock photo and “Our Dual Mission” where an invitation to mentor should have been
No pages for the five partner high schools at the heart of the program
118 blog posts in one flat archive, with no structure behind them
A site that told search engines not to index it
Email flagged as phishing, and a volunteer form with no spam protection
Gifts sent away to a third-party page
No way to measure anything beyond page views

[02] The Solution

We rebuilt the site around one idea: open with an invitation, not an introduction.

A person-first homepage with Ohana’s own students and one primary ask, Become a Mentor
A village page for each partner high school, plus a home for graduates in Pathfinders
38 stories in place of 118 posts, organized and linked to the programs they describe
Giving on the site, one time or monthly
A custom integration with Ohana’s membership system that adds every donor automatically and shows upcoming events in Ohana’s own design
Every mission action measured, from mentor applications to gifts, in a plain-language reporting dashboard
Search engines welcomed back, email that reaches the inbox, and spam protection on every form
Accessibility built in from the start, scoring a perfect 100
A new brand system, and an editor’s guide so Ohana’s small team runs the site themselves