Proposal · May 2026
Website Redesign & Development

Ferncliff, redesigned.

A response to your May 4 RFP. One website that helps your six audiences find what they came for.

From
Alec Rodriguez
Independent designer & developer
To
Kimberly Graves
kimberly@ferncliff.org
Submitted
May 25, 2026
01 · Overview

Overview.

A detailed proposal for the redesign of ferncliff.org. Built around the multi-audience problem at the core of your RFP.

Six audiences. One homepage. Every visitor routed in two clicks to what they came for — a camp session, a lodging tour, a campaign to give to, a class to enroll their kid in.

See the demo
ferncliff.alecrodriguez.net
Open the demo →
02 · What I heard

What I heard in your RFP.

I read your RFP six times. Five lines kept pulling me back. Each one shaped a specific part of this proposal.

Bring clarity and cohesion to a site that serves multiple distinct audiences without oversimplifying the organization's work.

This is the whole problem. A first-time camper parent and a corporate retreat planner have almost nothing in common, but they both land on the same homepage. The new homepage asks one question on the first scroll and routes from there.

Provide a flexible, easy-to-manage backend for staff who are not developers.

This rules out anything custom your team would need a developer to maintain. The new site is built so your team owns it. New campaign next month? Drag a block in. Photo swap? One click.

Increase key conversions: camp registrations, retreat inquiries, and donations.

Those three actions live in three places on every page. A header button. A sticky bottom bar on mobile. A page-level CTA at the bottom of every program page. A ready visitor never has to hunt.

We do not require a highly customized build... efficient, scalable solutions over highly custom or complex features.

Good. Not pitching you a bespoke build. Every component is a reusable block your team can rearrange. The design has a point of view, but nothing is locked in.

Phased or tiered approaches are welcome.

Phase 1 ships in October at $16,500. If you want to add more after launch, we can scope it then with full clarity on what's actually needed.

03 · Approach

How I'd solve the multi-audience problem.

The current site asks visitors to figure out where they belong. The new one tells them.

One question, six answers

Under the hero, the homepage asks: where do you belong? Six visible cards. Camp. Retreats & Conferences. Nature School. Outreach. Giving. Store. Same six items from your RFP Section 5, same order. Each card has a photo, a serif heading, and one clear next step.

Click any card and you land somewhere built for you. A parent sees registration dates and first-time camper resources. A retreat planner sees lodging options and capacities. The homepage does the routing once so the rest of the site can be specific.

A mega-menu that handles the depth

Ferncliff has more than 100 pages. The mega-menu in the demo surfaces them all in five clean dropdowns. Each dropdown has three columns and a photo card. Someone looking for "Belden Pond Cabins" specifically gets there in two clicks without going through the homepage. The Pathfinder is for browsers. The mega-menu is for people who already know what they want.

Three actions, always visible

Register. Inquire. Give. Sticky at the bottom on mobile. In the header on desktop. A ready visitor never has to scroll to find what they need.

1937 as a quiet anchor

You're 89 years old. That matters. Families enroll kids in sleepaway camp because they trust the place. The new site puts that trust in the wordmark, the hero, a dedicated heritage band, and the footer. Not loud about it. Just present.

04 · Scope

What I'll build.

Discovery

Design

Build

Handoff

What's not included

New copywriting. Custom photography or video. Branding work (your existing mark stays). A native app. Translation. Ongoing maintenance after launch (available separately).

05 · Platform

Two ways to build it.

Same homepage. Same templates. Same launch date. Two different posture choices for how your team maintains it. Pick during discovery.

Option A

WordPress

What you asked for in the RFP. A block-based theme on top of the most familiar admin interface on the web. Cheap hosting, deep plugin ecosystem, easy to find help if I ever step away.

  • Editor your team likely already knows
  • $30-35/month hosting (Kinsta or WP Engine)
  • Easy to extend with off-the-shelf plugins
Option B

Custom CMS

A small custom editor built around how your team actually writes. Cleaner admin, fewer choices, faster to use day to day. No plugin updates, no WordPress menus you don't need. Same blocks, just a different chassis.

  • Editor designed for your six audiences
  • Quieter, faster admin (no plugin clutter)
  • Owned end to end — no third-party platform

Both ship at the same price and the same timeline. The decision is about what your team prefers to live inside for the next decade. We'll look at both during discovery and pick the one that fits.

Hosting and any required licenses are pass-through either way. Setup and ownership move to you at launch.

06 · Integrations

Your existing platforms.

Section 4 of your RFP names five tools. Each keeps doing what it does best. The website routes visitors to them cleanly.

CampBrain
Every camp page links straight into your registration. The header has a sticky "Register for camp" button. Optional embed on a dedicated registration page if you want everything in-frame.
DonorPerfect
Embedded giving form on the Friends of Ferncliff page. Each active campaign on the homepage links to its own DonorPerfect URL. Monthly giving gets its own page.
Constant Contact
Newsletter form in the footer. Signups go straight into your existing list. No middleware.
ADP
A clean "Work at Ferncliff" page links to current openings. Summer Staff applications get a dedicated subpage with the apply URL at the top.
Square Online Store
The store stays at ferncliffstore.org. Featured products surface on the homepage. The demo already pulls in your real product photos.
Google Calendar (optional)
If you keep events on a calendar, we can surface them on a homepage strip and a dedicated events page.

Per your RFP, integrations are kept as deep links by default. If a deeper embed would clearly help, I'll flag it during discovery.

07 · Timeline

Timeline.

Your RFP says kickoff June 22, launch October to December. This plan lands the launch on October 27. Early in your window. Buffer for surprises.

Week 1 · Jun 22
Kickoff & discovery
Site audit delivered. Alignment on goals async via shared doc.
Weeks 2–3 · Jun 29
Sitemap and content blueprint
Proposed structure delivered. One revision round.
Weeks 4–6 · Jul 13
Design
Homepage finalized, then eight supporting templates.
Weeks 7–11 · Aug 3
Build
Theme built. Blocks created. Integrations wired.
Weeks 12–13 · Sep 7
Content migration & handoff
Existing pages moved over. Written guide and screen-recorded walkthrough delivered for your team.
Weeks 14–15 · Sep 21
QA & soft launch
Cross-device testing. Accessibility check. Staging review.
Week 16 · Oct 5
Final fixes & launch prep
Redirects. DNS. Analytics. Search console.
Oct 27, 2026
Launch
Site goes live. Two weeks of monitoring and small fixes included.
08 · Cost

Cost.

Discovery & strategySite audit, sitemap, content blueprint.
$2,500
DesignHomepage and 8 templates. Two revision rounds each. Mobile-first.
$4,500
BuildCustom theme. Reusable blocks. Editor experience built for your team.
$5,500
IntegrationsCampBrain, DonorPerfect, Constant Contact, ADP, Square.
$1,500
Content migration & handoffMove existing content. Written guide. Screen-recorded walkthrough.
$1,500
Accessibility & SEO baselineWCAG 2.1 AA. Schema. Sitemap. Open Graph.
$1,000
Total
$16,500

Ongoing support (optional)

$250/month. CMS and plugin updates. Backup monitoring. One hour a month of content help. Cancel any time after the first three months.

Payment

Net-15. ACH, check, or card. Hosting and any required plugin licenses are pass-through and billed by you directly.

09 · Team

Who's doing the work.

Me. I work solo. One point of contact. One person accountable.

Most agencies your size are pitching you a project manager, a designer, a developer, and a content lead. Four people, four schedules, four invoices, four chances for things to fall through the gaps. You don't need four. Your budget can't really cover four either.

Alec Rodriguez

I handle every phase. Discovery, sitemap, visual design, development, accessibility, content migration, handoff. You talk to me on everything. No handoffs because there's nobody to hand off to.

My background is full-stack design and development for small teams and mission-driven orgs. I write the CSS, the back-end code, and the documentation. I run a software business that manages a lot of systems day to day, so I'm comfortable owning the whole thing on a project this size.

10 · Past work

Past work.

Your RFP asks for examples of building for mission-driven orgs and for sites that serve multiple audiences. Here are two I built.

Live Like Ryan

livelikeryan99.org

A nonprofit memorial foundation site. Serves donors, volunteers, scholarship applicants, and family members from one home page. The IA was the same problem you've named: how do you welcome very different visitors without flattening any of them. The site routes each audience to the next step they care about and keeps the foundation's story consistent across all of them.

Why it matters here: nonprofit website, multi-audience routing, single-person to design + build + ship.

RecoveryOS

recoveryos.app

The software business I run day to day. A platform serving four user types from one product. Residents, sober-home owners, family members, and admins. The original navigation crammed every role into one sidebar. The redesign gave each role its own dashboard while keeping common actions consistent across all four.

Why it matters here: I manage a lot of systems and have deep expertise in the kind of architecture your RFP describes. Live in the Apple App Store as of April 2026. Used by 40+ organizations.

Why these two matter for Ferncliff

Both solved the exact problem in your Section 1: clarity for a multi-audience site, plus a CMS the team can actually run after launch. Both shipped on time. The Pathfinder pattern in your demo is a direct application of what I learned on these.

11 · Closing

A short closing.

I'd like to build this.

The line in your RFP about a site that "serves multiple distinct audiences without oversimplifying the organization's work" is what kept pulling me back. It's the exact thing I'm best at. The demo at ferncliff.alecrodriguez.net is the most direct way I can prove that without making you read another twelve pages.

Ferncliff is 89 years old. The next 89 deserve a site that's as clear as the place itself. A parent should find the right camp session in two clicks. A retreat planner should see lodging options in one scroll. A donor should give to the campaign they care about in three taps.

Whatever you decide, thank you for the RFP. It's one of the clearest scope documents I've worked from.

One more time
ferncliff.alecrodriguez.net
Open the demo →
Alec Rodriguez
Independent designer & developer