The Houssian Foundation: Making an Impact
- Social Justice
- Environment
Driven by a passion for fostering positive change, the Houssian Foundation provides multi-year funding to organizations that help advance gender equality, support healthy ecosystems and promote a sense of belonging in local communities. Through these endeavours, they aim to contribute to a more just, sustainable and inclusive world for future generations.
The Challenge
Finding a way forward
The Houssian Foundation approached our team to discuss their objectives and explore a new direction for their website redesign that would clearly represent their organization. Eager to revitalize their online presence, they needed a website that would effectively engage current and prospective grantee partners, as well as support their grant application process. They entrusted us not only to create a user-friendly experience but also to develop a platform that would clearly highlight the organization’s areas of impact.
Client
Service
Sector
Technology
- WordPress
The Solution
High impact design for a high impact organization
Our process with the Houssian Foundation began by gaining a deep understanding of the organization and team that already had a strong sense of their identity. Since they had previously started a redesign, it was important for us to review the work done so far and understand why it hadn’t fully resonated with them. This required immersing ourselves in who they are as an organization. During our initial meeting, the team was warm, approachable, and welcoming, inviting us into their space. Visiting their office for an in-person discovery session allowed us to see their values in action and gain valuable insights into their work. This understanding was vital for accurately capturing their brand in the new designs we created.
The resulting design is clean and minimalist, using generous full-colour photography and minimal text to create a compelling visual narrative. Impactful, engaging images—many featuring a human element—highlight core values and areas of focus, creating connection with the community they serve. Visual accents like gradients in buttons, photo masking, and distinctive typography introduce a sense of creativity and excitement, reflecting the Houssian Foundation’s spirit of hope, open-mindedness, optimism, and entrepreneurship.
Building with purpose
We engaged in collaborative content strategy sessions, working closely to identify their core messaging and develop a content hierarchy that would guide the website’s information architecture, including a streamlined grant application process. This foundational work shaped the site layout and helped us understand their voice.
We built the site on WordPress, choosing a solution with flexible components to ensure ease of content management for their internal team over the long term. As part of our commitment to empowering our clients, we prefer open-source technologies that help reduce reliance on external partners after launch. By providing a clear, user-friendly back-end administrative interface, the Houssian Foundation’s team can update their website whenever they wish, enabling them to focus their resources on supporting the organizations that matter most.
