6th November 2007 – The Football Foundation website has been powered by EasySite™ CMS since July 2004. Following a recent process review the Football Foundation made the decision to relaunch their site and upgrade to the newest version of EasySite.
The Foundation is the UK’s largest sports charity, investing £45m each year into community projects with a mission to improve facilities, create opportunities and build communities. The Foundation is funded by the Premier League, The FA, Sport England and the Government and as the country’s largest funder of grass roots football, has delivered thousands of facility and community projects, as well as free kit and safe goalposts, since its launch in July 2000.
After a review of their existing website the Football Foundation identified the need for changes in both content and design in order to provide improved navigation and online services primarily for potential applicants, but for other site visitors as well. The new site also needed a new design in order to make it more brand compatible with other marketing collateral. Following a consultancy period with EIBS a decision was made to upgrade to EasySite v6 as it provided the Foundation with advanced features not available in their current version EasySite v5.
The upgrade to EasySite v6 provided the Football Foundation with more flexibility and functionality when it came to creating site content. The integrated template builder allowed site administrators full control over page layouts allowing them to create master templates that could be used on any site pages. With no limits on page templates, Football Foundation authors were able to create site pages that met their exact requirements whilst still maintaining full brand control.
The new site makes extensive use of banners via the EasySite Banner Management module. All main site pages contain banners that are personalised to the page content and the banners refresh automatically each time the page is visited. Each banner links other areas of the site and full statistics on click-thru are available to view.
Using the Directory Builder module the Football Foundation is able to create and maintain a searchable database of all news stories. The press release section of the site contains press releases going back to 2000 and is fully searchable by site visitors. The database sits on one page allowing visitors to easily find the information they are looking for.
With the upgrade to EasySite v6 the Football Foundation obtained restricted access capabilities as part of the core system. With restricted access the Foundation can create unlimited extranet facilities that contain information that can only be seen by registered users. There is no limit to the number of extranet areas that can be created, providing maximum flexibility to create restricted content for numerous schemes or specific grants.
Bruce Groves, Sales Consultant at EIBS said: “The new Football Foundation site is a great example of what can be achieved using EasySite v6. The advanced flexibility of the product has allowed the Foundation to create a site that not only looks great, but is informative and easy to use for site visitors. We are very pleased to have been involved in this project and look forward to continuing to work with the Football Foundation on their future web development.”
Rachael Keen, Events and Marketing Manager at the Football Foundation and responsible for the development of the new website commented: “We are very proud of our new website, it’s simple for applicants, easy to navigate and has fresh content each time a user visits the site. We wanted to create a website to better meet the needs of our customers and exceed their expectations and we have really achieved that. With the introduction of online forms launched at the same time, this is the start of more good things to come.”
Minister for Sport Gerry Sutcliffe said: "The launch of the new website will make it easier to apply for funding from the Football Foundation. The online application process will help to reduce paperwork and bureaucracy and help make the Foundation more efficient and effective as a grant-giving body. This will not only benefit applicants but also allow the Foundation to distribute funding where it is most needed quicker than before.
"The Foundation has already supported projects worth over half a billion pounds since 2000 and this latest improvement will allow staff to spend more time working with applicants to help deliver the Foundation's objectives of improving facilities, creating opportunities and building communities."
