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Case study

Churches of Christ Victoria & Tasmania

Churches of Christ VIC/TAS (CCVT) is a vibrant movement comprising over 130 communities of hope and compassion across Victoria and Tasmania. As the coordinating body, CCVT is dedicated to supporting these diverse communities in fulfilling their God-given mission to serve and positively impact their local neighbourhoods. We’ve been working with the CCVT team for almost a decade, developing and supporting their websites.

The challenge

Churches of Christ VIC/TAS (CCVT) had an existing website that Heartburst designed and built back in 2016.  While the old site served them well, it was built with Kentico CMS which has increased their licence pricing significantly, making it cost prohibitive for a nonprofit like CCVT.  The user experience was also proving to be confusing, as it was inspired by an organisational restructure at the time. 

Our objective with this new project was to create a new website for Churches of Christ VIC/TAS that serves as a central hub of information, inspiration, and collaboration. The website will inform stakeholders with clarity, reflect organisational excellence, and be easily accessible and discoverable. It will highlight achievements, share impactful stories, and cover the breadth of our programs while providing engaging and helpful content tailored to target users.

The site will advance the work of the church by supporting member churches and affiliates in their mission, empowering faith, and enabling good works. It aims to establish credibility, inspire confidence, and foster networking and collaboration among members. By effectively communicating our values and results, the website will ensure stakeholders remain informed and engaged.

 

Our approach

When approaching this website redesign, we were cognisant of the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, which had sadly (but rightly) eroded public confidence in church governance.   As CCVT oversees the governance and professional practices of a “denomination” of Christian churches, we wanted to create a site that demonstrated their credibility and professionalism.

The process began with a comprehensive discovery workshop that analysed user journeys and user stories. This workshop provided valuable insights into the needs, behaviours, and expectations of key stakeholders and target audiences. We had evolved our discovery workshopping methodology since our previous work with CCVT, introducing a Human Centred Design approach (HCD). This informed the website’s architecture and wayfinding, ensuring a people-focused experience rather than following internal jargon and structures. 

We chose WordPress as our CMS platform for its flexibility, scalability, and ease of use for non-technical contributors (plus it’a open source pricing model, of course). The website features optimised search functionality for finding churches, visually compelling layouts that inspire confidence, and impactful stories.  Multiple contributors can easily add or edit content, ensuring it remains up-to-date and relevant. Analytics tools have also been integrated to provide ongoing insights, enabling continuous refinement.

The solution

The new website delivered significant results across key metrics. Traffic data showed a rise in overall visitors, with higher session times and a lower bounce rate, indicating better user engagement. Positive feedback was received confirming the site’s usability and impact.

Donations to CareWorks and other giving initiatives saw a measurable increase, alongside a growth in partners, affiliates, and grant-seeking activity. The church search functionality saw higher page views and more link clicks to individual church pages, while ministry inquiries also rose, showcasing the effectiveness of the search tools. Contributor feedback highlighted the ease of adding and editing content, reinforcing the WordPress platform’s suitability. 

Overall, CCVT’s new website is supporting their mission of empowering member churches, increasing giving, and strengthening the connection between churches and their communities.

Visit the Churches of Christ VIC/TAS website

Team members from our digital agency for nonprofits

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