BNCEP came to us through a PR firm we work with. The organisation had invested in a website that wasn’t finished, the project had stalled, and they needed someone to get them live.
The challenge
We were asked to pick up where the previous developer had left off. Looking at what existed, that turned out to be the wrong recommendation to make.
The site had been built in Laravel. It’s a capable framework, but it was the wrong fit here: BNCEP needed to add events, publish content, and grow the site over time without a developer involved in every change, and a custom Laravel application meant a developer for every change. Picking up that codebase would have handed them a site they could look at but never really run.
So we said so, and proposed starting over in WordPress instead — a complete rebuild, delivered in under two weeks.
What we did
A full rebuild in under two weeks
We rebuilt the site from the ground up, matching the design that had already been approved so nothing the organisation had signed off on was lost. What changed was everything underneath: a platform they own, can edit, and can extend.
Then we added the things the original build hadn’t covered:
- event registration, so members can sign up directly
- calendar integration, so events are visible and accurate
- dynamic content for webinars, so new sessions publish without touching the design
Two weeks is fast for a full rebuild. It was achievable because the design work was already settled and because WordPress meant building on established foundations rather than writing an application from scratch — which is the same reason the site is now straightforward for BNCEP to maintain.
A membership platform for 200+ members
That project led to a bigger one. BNCEP wanted somewhere their members could actually connect: not a directory, but a working community.
We looked at the options and built it on BuddyBoss, then customised it heavily to fit how the organisation works. Members now have profiles, join private groups for particular events and interests, and collaborate with one another directly through the site.
The customisation is what made it fit. Out of the box, community platforms assume a social network. BNCEP needed something closer to a professional collaboration space, and the differences are in the details: how members find each other, which groups are private, what a profile leads with.
Hosting, maintenance, and what came after
The site is on our managed hosting with maintenance and support handled. The organisation has come back for further work since, including individual campaign and event pages built on top of the platform.
The results
More than 200 members now use the platform to collaborate across the Philadelphia nonprofit community. BNCEP went from a stalled project with no usable website to a site they control, plus a member community that didn’t exist before.
If your nonprofit’s website project has stalled
It happens more than anyone admits: a build runs long, communication thins out, and a nonprofit is left with something half-finished and a budget already spent.
The hardest part is deciding what to do with what exists. Sometimes it’s salvageable. Sometimes, as here, finishing someone else’s build would cost more than starting again — and leave you with a site you can’t run yourself. Either way, you deserve a straight answer before you spend anything else.
If you’re in that position, get a proposal. We’ll look at what you have and tell you honestly which it is.
