Newbury Riding for the Disabled (NRDA) is reliant on public fundraising to generate £65,000 a year to provide therapeutic riding for local schools and disabled individuals, along with the help and support of more than 100 volunteers. An attractive website to generate support and to communicate effectively with all involved is an essential asset.

The Group’s original website was more than 10 years old; it looked tired and was proving operationally obsolete. It was complicated to update and lacked the ability to encompass new ideas and requirements.

NRDA had previously worked extremely successfully with Hyphen8 to instigate a salesforce.com platform, to actively manage records of riders and volunteers.

The offer to help redesign and implement a whole new website platform free of charge for Hyphen8’s Pledge 8% social mission was timely and extremely welcome.

With the project under the auspices of Hyphen8’s Jonny Pugh it has progressed quickly from an idea, to a fully-fledged and working website that is meeting all the NRDA objectives.

In just a couple of Zoom calls, Jonny quickly understood the communication needs and functionality requirements of the website. He came up with a transformational fresh format and attractive design that gave all the scope for the Group’s needs now, and to develop in the future.

Crucially, he also built-in a content management system that enabled the website to be easily managed and maintained by NRDA volunteers with little or no previous experience.

Sally Sanderson of NRDA recalls she approached the website re-design with certain amount of trepidation. “However, Jonny’s guidance through the whole process had made it really painless.

“We now have something that already far exceeds our expectations and has been warmly welcomed by everyone involved with NRDA. It is something that the riders, their families and all the volunteers can engage with.

It is a really important asset to further develop our fundraising initiatives in the future. Importantly, it also demonstrates to donors and supporters that the Group has the necessary governance tools documented and readily accessible.”

Jonny undertook the redesign of the content and establishing the framework of the website structure in just a couple of weeks, and then managed the seamless switch across from the old system to the new. Along with training for utilising the capabilities of the content management system.

“Crucially Jonny’s set up a great looking website that we can now manage ourselves at minimal ongoing cost to the Group,” said Sally. “But it’s really reassuring to know that we have his continued support should it be required.”

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