"I'm happy that ONE/Northwest exists because it's so helpful to mid-size organizations like ours to have these affordable services available.  Working with ONE/Northwest makes me want to plan more proactively for the future, too."

-Karen Luetjen, Executive Director, Seattle Tilth

The Challenge

The mission of Seattle Tilth is to inspire and educate people to garden organically, conserve natural resources and support local food systems in order to cultivate a healthy urban environment and community.  Seattle Tilth's website is one of its most important ways to reach out to the Seattle gardening community to publicize its many events, workshops and information resources and to engage the volunteers and members that nourish Seattle Tilth's work.

Seattle Tilth's existing website was hand-built and was difficult to maintain.  Executive Director Karen Luetjen reports,  "Our site was being maintained by only one staff member. It sometimes took two weeks for us to publish updated information." Even with a website, the task of registering volunteers, workshops and events was still being done by phone; a time-consuming job for everyone.

The Solution

Seattle Tilth worked with ONE/Northwest to build a new website that allows their entire staff to create and update pages, including event announcements, workshop listings, and gardening articles. Plone,  a powerful and user-friendly open-source content management system, was the key to meeting the many needs of Seattle Tilth. Plone allows Seattle Tilth's entire staff to update the website instantly, with no knowledge of HTML. 

According to Karen Luetjen, "Now we have many staff who are trained to update content on our website.  We are able to have much more timely information on our site, and staff can bring their own personal writing styles to content."

The Results

After launching their new website, Seattle Tilth reported that the number of incoming phone calls dropped dramatically, because the new website was now providing accurate up-to-date information about goings-on at Tilth.  Signing up volunteers became much easier thanks to Plone's simple tool for creating web forms, so much so that Seattle Tilth now has over 250 shifts for volunteers.

An easy-to-use website also helped Seattle Tilth respond effectively to fast-breaking events. When avian influenza (bird flu) began to generate significant local media coverage late 2005, Seattle Tilth was able to immediately post information for concerned urban chicken owners.  According to Karen Luetjen, Plone's usability "allows us to proactively address issues people want to know about."

Seattle Tilth was also very excited to announce their Edible Plant Sale (pictured) and to post all the information about the event on their website. Word spread quickly and the public turned out in numbers for this fun and engaging event.

Learning to use web technology has given Seattle Tilth the confidence to innovate. One very positive outcome is a form that site visitors can use to email the Natural Lawn & Garden Hotline.  People can now ask questions and seek advice directly through the Seattle Tilth website. With this simple but effective solution, Seattle Tilth found a way to free more time for their staff.

With the new site launch, the goal of reducing call volume was achieved. Karen summarizes the results, "We usually got lots of calls from parents wanting to know the availability of slots in our summer children's programs. Thanks to the easily updateable website, our registration is much more efficient and we have fewer calls to return."