PACT is a Twin Cities-based association for digital learning professionals. I have been a member for many years and have served on the board twice as Communication Chair and Technology Chair. The Content Management System that PACT’s website was built on was sunsetting and the organization needed a new website by the end of the year. Because PACT is a non-profit organization, there were limited funds available.
As the Technology Chair, I researched hosted association platforms, but they either wouldn’t provided all of the functionality our organization needed. That meant that a lot of board process would need to be done manually, resulting in more work for a volunteer board.
Instead of spending thousands of dollars to build a brand new membership site, I decided to built it myself. I used WordPress as a platform and integrated membership, event management, social, and form plugins to build out the site for the organization. I worked closely with each board function, including treasury, membership, programming, communications, and the executive board to make sure all of the existing website functionality was accounted for with the new site, and built custom plugins to account for any discrepancies between purchased plugins and capabilities needed. I also worked to automate existing manual processes to save the board and members time.
Overall, I spent about 60-80 hours/month over 6 months building out pactmn.org in my free time. It has been live for several years now, has successfully changed hands with new board members several times, and has the potential to keep evolving over time as the organization’s needs change. In 2020, I was awarded PACT’s highest recognition, the Hall of Fame award, which recognizes one member every two years for their contributions to the organization.
