Case Study: Nonprofit Digital Strategy
When Every Click Could Solve a Crime
The Challenge: A Website That had Stopped Working for the Mission
One of the primary goals of the Crime Solvers of Fairfax County website is to get tips that solve crimes. For years, its website quietly undermined that goal. The platform was difficult to maintain, prone to errors, and cluttered with redundant links that sent visitors off-site without explanation.
Stakeholders knew the site wasn’t working. What they didn’t have was a clear picture of why, or a plan to fix it.
"The tip submission link wasn't immediately obvious.
That alone is a problem when your entire mission depends on someone deciding to act in that moment."
We Asked Before We Built
Before a single page was designed, i.e.Interactive conducted a full Discovery and Define phase. We interviewed five core stakeholders across the organization including the Fairfax County Police Department, audited the existing site from technical and user experience perspectives, analyzed competitor and peer nonprofit websites, and ran a baseline SEO audit.
The goal wasn’t to validate assumptions. It was to surface what was actually true about who visits the site, what they need, and what was getting in their way.
~Jim Kirkpatrick, Board Secretary, Former Chair
~Jean Ahwesh, President, Ahwesh & Associates, LLC, Fauquier County, VA
Every stakeholder, independently, said the same thing:
The website's job is to serve anonymous tipsters first and foremost.
Discovery made the north star undeniable.
Nonprofit Realities Shape Every Decision
Working with a nonprofit means treating budget and staff resources as finite, non-negotiable constraints, not line items to negotiate. Every recommendation had to be practical, sustainable, and achievable without a dedicated in-house digital team.
That sensitivity shaped our platform choices, content strategy, and handoff process from the start. We weren’t building something impressive on paper. We were building something that would keep working long after we stepped back.
What We Delivered
- Website Strategy: A comprehensive strategic framework anchored in tip generation, informed directly by stakeholder interviews and discovery findings.
- Information Architecture: A complete site map and content structure that eliminated redundant external links, surfaced tip submission prominently, and organized the donation experience within the site rather than routing users away from it.
- Website Content: Full copy developed for the new site, written with the primary audience (tipsters seeking anonymity) and secondary audiences (donors, community partners) clearly in mind.
- Fundraising Platform: Led a structured evaluation of three fundraising platform options. GiveButter was selected for its ease of use, modern payment support, and nonprofit-friendly pricing. We guided the full review and final recommendation.
- WordPress + Training: Recommended WordPress for its ease of editing. Provided three hours of hands-on staff training with full video recordings of each session so the team can reference them independently.
- Design & Development Handoff: All strategy, architecture, and content assets were packaged and handed off to Inksplash for design and development.
Mid-project: The organization renamed itself.
Partway through the engagement, Fairfax County Crime Solvers became Crime Solvers of Fairfax County. This triggered a full chain of domain name changes, brand asset updates, and coordination across all platforms in progress. We managed that transition without disrupting the project timeline.
Defining Success: What "Working" Looks Like for This Client
For a nonprofit in public safety, website success isn’t measured in session duration or bounce rates. The metrics that matter are operational: Can the right person find the tip line instantly? Can staff update the site without calling a developer? Does the site reflect the organization’s credibility to a potential donor?
We Turn Over Every Stone Before We Build Anything
The Crime Solvers of Fairfax County engagement is a clear example of the i.e.Interactive process in practice: Thorough discovery first, then recommendations built entirely around the target audience and their goals, not assumptions or templates.
– Discovery First
We don’t take a brief at face value. We interview stakeholders, audit existing systems, map audiences, and test assumptions before a single recommendation is made.
– The Right Tool
For a nonprofit with limited staff, recommending a complex platform would have been a disservice. We evaluated options against real operational capacity, not just feature lists.
– Audience-Driven Everything
Every structural decision, every piece of content, and every platform choice traces back to a specific audience and their goal, not what the organization wants to say.
– We Build for Handoff
Our job is to set clients up to succeed without us. That means thorough documentation, real training, and strategic work that partner agencies can execute with confidence.