TL;DR
Herralink, a senior living nonprofit, faced declining volunteer engagement. I redesigned their website in Framer, improving site structure, consistency, and visual identity to make signing up easier and more engaging, helping position the organization for growth and acquisition under Goodwin Living.
Area
Web Design
Team
2 designers
Duration
2025 (4 months)
Tools
Figma, Framer
30% increased volunteer participation
Context
Herralink’s Mission to Build Community
Herralink is a senior living organization that helps the elderly connect with youth and build community. When Goodwin Living, a fellow nonprofit, approached to acquire Herralink to expand volunteer engagement, it created an opportunity for a refreshed visual identity and a simpler website experience to better recruit volunteers, manage events, and amplify its impact.
The Challenge
Addressing Decline in Volunteer Participation
Before the potential acquisition, Herralink was experiencing a decline in volunteer participation, leading to fewer visits for seniors and low attendance at weekly events. The challenge was to reverse this trend by making it easier and more engaging for volunteers to join, while giving Herralink a cohesive, compelling visual identity.
Research and Analysis
Aligning User Needs With Business Goals
I joined midway as the second designer, tasked with rebuilding Herralink’s site in Framer. With the acquisition approaching, the founder wanted quick results, but the proposed updates felt inconsistent. The visuals were cleaner, yet the functionality hadn’t improved, and I wasn’t confident that a new look alone could boost volunteer registrations.
Old design vs early iteration of new website
I paused to realign with the organization’s goals and volunteer needs. While coordinating volunteer interviews was challenging, but time with the founder and team gave me the clarity to develop a more informed approach.
Following the meeting we took these insights into consideration and conducted a brief audit to identify potential solutions and these were the pain points we decided to address:
Sitemap
Identifying Structural Gaps
The main issue I noticed was that pages were designed in isolation, limiting support for volunteer recruitment. I worked with another designer and the team to brainstorm and map out two potential site structures.
Option 1
Option 2
We decided that the second option would be quicker to implement and prioritized volunteer registration. With the acquisition approaching, reliance on donations was less urgent. While this structure highlighted Herralink’s background less, it offered the best chance to attract volunteers and position the organization as a strong acquisition partner.
Design
Laying the Foundations for Better Design
Much of the design lacked a clear system, so I organized colors, styles, layouts, and typography after the fact. This brought consistency, created a stronger foundation for future design, and eased the transition into Framer.
redesign
Improvement #1
Simple & informative
The most noticeable and immediate improvement is the site’s updated visual design and layout; it’s cleaner, easier to navigate, and brings a modern, welcoming look intended to keep users engaged and learn a little bit more about the organization.
Improvement #2
Registration Page
Because the actual sign-up process took place primarily outside the website, we redesigned the registration page to guide volunteers more clearly. By adding simple, step-by-step instructions, volunteers felt more confident navigating to a new tab and completing their registration without confusion.
Improvement #3
FAQ section
The last thing a volunteer should face when generously offering their time is the frustration of not finding the information they need. This lack of clarity initially contributed to low participation, so we added an FAQ section to address common questions and remove barriers to getting involved.
Improvement #4
Activities & Events
Because weekly activities are the primary way volunteers connect with seniors, we designed a new Activities page where all events are regularly updated. From there, users can sign up through the volunteer portal to receive consistent updates on upcoming events and opportunities.
Additional Improvements
Social Media Outreach
Boosting Herralink’s growth went beyond redesigning the website. It included a complete visual refresh and a broader outreach strategy. By pairing the new site with a targeted social media campaign, we were also able to funnel more mobile users into volunteering.
Measuring Success
For the three months that followed, the combination of implementing design changes, launching the redesigned website, and running a focused social media outreach campaign came together to create measurable impact:
Things I Would Do Differently…
While it was outside of my control, I wish I had been brought into the design process earlier. Having that involvement from the start would have allowed us to shape a stronger overall strategy and save valuable time during execution.
I would have advocated more strongly for keeping a larger portion of the registration flow within the site itself. Unfortunately, given the tight deadline, we had to rely on external steps, but in the future this change would make the experience far more seamless for volunteers.
One element I admired in the old site was its use of photos, which gave it a warm and welcoming feel. I regret that we didn’t carry more of that forward, and I’ve already suggested reintroducing it in the next round of updates.
What I Learned
I think the most valuable lesson I took from this project was adaptability. Stepping into a project that was already in motion was initially uncomfortable, but it challenged me to trust my judgment, stand by my design decisions, and advocate for what I believed would best serve the organization. On top of that, taking the website all the way from Figma into Framer gave me a new perspective on the development side of the process. While it wasn’t the same as true engineering work, it gave me a deeper appreciation for the technical challenges developers face and helped me build greater empathy for their role.