So I started working with our local Cub Scout Pack a little while back - and in so doing soon rediscovered some of my community service roots (harking waaaay back to video documentaries and cable TV activism in the 70's). This is a neat little solution for a volunteer community service website.

Challenges

Volunteer service organizations are the backbone of our community. They must be supported, but that can be difficult - precisely because they are unfunded "volunteer" organizations.

As a Den Leader of our local Cub Scout Pack, I soon learned that one of our biggest headaches was communicating - both internally among the organization leadership and out to our Scout families.

Our primary concerns:

Updating new information
Many different people were blasting out emails in all directions, with little accountability and no consistent way to respond or follow-up.

A central source for Information
Parents of young children already juggle incredibly busy and complex schedules. We want our Scout families to have ready, easy access to everything Scout-related.

Constantly changing personnel
A boy passes through Cub Scouts in only five years: The local Cub Scout Pack is run exclusively by parent volunteers. This means that the organization's leadership is in almost constant flux.

Recruitment and community presence
Because of the constant turnover, there's an ongoing need to raise funds and bring in new Scouts.

Organizational Process
Like many youth organizations, the Scouts now adhere to strict policies regarding safety and oversight. One of our biggest tasks is to make sure that Leaders and Parents have access to the necessary forms and documents.

Solutions

In terms of style, we kept it simple - Just a few information areas with modest pictures.

Fundamental Website Structure

The Pack Calendar provides quick, centralized access to a listing of all Pack Events. An individual event has cross-links to relevant forms and documents.

The Newsletter & Bulletin Board page is a showcase for Pack announcements from the ScoutMaster and pictures from our scrapbook

A Directory of Leaders and committee roles is an easy way for parents and leaders to know who does what - and how to get in touch with them

We have a separate page for every Den, which allows the Den Leader to provide Scout Families with contact numbers, the Den meeting schedule and to outline upcoming activites.

Our FAQ's page quickly answers the most-commonly-asked questions - and provides cross-links to appropriate forms and documents.

Demo Site, CSS Style Guide, Wireframes, Personas (Profiles)

There's something really satisfying about putting together a small-scale site that has a definable purpose and is really useful. Perhaps the greatest complement was having Scout leaders from other troops and packs ask if there was any way they could get a site like this, too. Hmmmmmmm....

Community Customer Self-service site design & page templates, sitemap & navigation, workflow for customer self-service, artwork & branding, CSS stylesheets & branding, webcopy, hosting, email