Volunteer: Montana's COVID-19 Meal Delivery Website
Overview
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a friend of mine was involved in a volunteer project with Montana's, where he was handling marketing for a home delivery service. When I learned that they needed a website but lacked the resources to make one, I didn't hesitate to step in.
I volunteered to help design and build Montana’s website for their non-profit COVID-19 meal delivery project. I was in charge of development, design, and copy.
The challenge
Find a way for users to know about and sign up for Montana's meal delivery service. They needed lots of sign-ups, meal purchases, and donations in order to rehire staff to contribute to this project and keep employees on payroll throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
This project had a tight deadline as every day without meal purchases, donations, and signups they couldn’t provide for their employees.
I had a couple of days to get something live. With working a full-time job and the tight deadline I had to manage my time wisely.
The solution
With such a tight timeline the best solution was to create a landing page using a CMS. I sketched some ideas for layout and once I was happy with the layout I looked for a template that was similar to my sketches.
Once I found one that was close enough I spent a lot of time customizing the template to work. This involved lots of styling, rearranging, and adding sections.
When the template was completed I added copy, images, and CTAs.
A slight roadblock
In order to receive meal delivery during COVID-19 the user has to fill out a waiver.
I found a couple of solutions to this problem. A quick way is to open up the PDF waiver, have the user fill it out, and send an email with the waiver filled out. The second option I found would take a lot longer and some potential upfront investment. I found a customizable form service in which you can connect with docu-sign. The only problem is the service will cost an additional monthly fee. I let Montana's make the decision on which option they wanted to use. We ended up using the quick solution.
Another request
When the website was almost completed I was asked if there was a way to receive donations through the website. I told them yes this is possible but might take more time and will require more resources. I suggested setting up a Stripe account to accept payment. I mentioned that because we are using a CMS it might be a difficult task but it definitely is possible. Again I left it in the hands for them to decide what they wanted to do. Due to the tight budget and deadline, we decided against setting up Stripe.
Results
- Over 750 meals donated
- Over $160 donated to local food banks
- Over 532 free meals delivered to healthcare workers and their families
- Delivered over 2200 meals to those wishing to self-isolate
I was really happy I got to be involved with this project and help people in need during this crazy unpredictable time. It was really rewarding to see how something so small can impact so many.
What I would do differently next time
I would use a different CMS or even create a custom website from scratch. I found using the CMS was limited with styling and creating css classes. Which resulted in some contrast, font size, style, and spacing issues. Building from scratch would have required more time but I would have been able to implement some better features and have a better overall looking website.
Concluding
Before completing the project I showed them how to use the CMS so they could update, copy, or change whatever they needed to. I also let them know if they needed anything further I was more than willing to help.