Philanthropy Colorado

Philanthropy Colorado is a 501(c)3 membership organization that brings people, information, and resources together to strengthen communities across the state. More than 120 organizations belong to it, from foundations and corporations to public agencies.

The organization had outgrown its website. By the Pixel was hired to redesign it, and I co-designed it with our Chief Design Officer. This case study covers the research, the architecture, the visual identity, and the handoff.

Stakeholder interviews, a content audit, and a review of peer organizations all came back with the same finding: nobody could find anything. Navigation had grown piece by piece, content was disorganized, and inconsistent visuals made the site feel colder than the organization behind it.

We worked from one rule: fewer clicks. Whether someone came to join, register for an event, or find a resource, the path had to be short and obvious.

The old structure had grown a page at a time, until finding anything meant already knowing where it was. The audit and interviews showed what people needed and where the structure failed them. The fix was consolidation into four top-level sections: About, Membership, Engage, and News & Resources.

We kept the contextual sub-navigation members already relied on and modernized it, which made the site easier to get around and easier for staff to maintain.

The organization had plenty of personality. The old site just didn't show it. We used blocks of yellow, purple, orange, and teal to put the brand up front, soft neutrals to keep pages calm, and confident type to hold it together.

High-contrast buttons, badges, and icons add character without getting in the way, and the system has room for new content and programs.

Blog posts, news, and resources used to sit in separate corners of the site. Now they live in one content library that also serves as the organization's thought-leadership hub. Filters, tags, and clear categories help people find a policy update, a news article, or a downloadable guide, and one library is easier for staff to maintain than three.

We designed the site but didn't build it. Philanthropy Colorado belongs to a consortium that requires members to use a specific development firm, so the handoff was the deliverable. The Figma files hold everything that firm needed: component behavior, responsive layouts, accessibility notes, and styling guidance, annotated in place.