Fausz Family Foundation

Nonprofit Website Design, Development & Client Consulting

The Fausz Family Foundation is a nonprofit family foundation focused on supporting organizations that are making a meaningful difference in their communities, with a particular connection to Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan.

I designed and built the foundation’s website to give the organization a professional online presence while keeping the story personal, approachable, and centered around the people and organizations it supports.

Starting With a Recently Built Site

The website had been developed two years prior, so the foundation existed — but the rebrand required a full reconstruction of nearly every page.

The theme (Divi) introduced significant limitations. Custom CSS and JavaScript were restricted, and the “moving elements” originally discussed were not feasible within the theme’s constraints. Every layout adjustment required manual overrides, and every mobile breakpoint had to be handled individually.

The project wasn’t a refresh. It was a rebuild.

Challenge

The Fausz Family Foundation needed an online presence that could clearly explain who they were, what they believed in, and how they chose to support other nonprofit organizations.

This was not simply a matter of putting information onto a website. The foundation had a personal story behind it, a strong connection to the local community, and a growing list of organizations it wanted to recognize and support.

The website needed to communicate that mission without making the foundation feel overly corporate or impersonal.

It also needed to be something the client could understand and work with after the initial build was complete.

Approach

I approached the project as both a website design project and a consulting project.

I worked directly with the foundation to understand the organization, its mission, the people behind it, and the types of organizations it wanted to support. That allowed me to organize the website around the information a visitor would actually need rather than simply creating pages based on a predetermined structure.

I designed and developed the WordPress website with a focus on making the foundation’s purpose immediately understandable.

The site was organized around several key areas, including:

• The foundation’s mission and purpose
• The story of founders Glenn and Jane Fausz
• The foundation’s board and donor advisory members
• Organizations supported by the foundation
• Information about contributing
• Contact information

The Who We Support section was particularly important because the foundation’s work is ultimately about the organizations receiving its support. I organized the section so visitors could learn about the different nonprofits and the work they were doing in their communities.

The finished site communicates the foundation’s philosophy of providing a “hand up” by investing in organizations with a clear purpose, strong vision, and history of serving people in need.

Client Training & Support

My involvement went beyond building and launching the website.

Because the foundation was operated on a personal, hands-on level, I also provided in-home training for the client. His office was located in his home, so I was able to work with him directly in his own environment and teach him how the website worked.

Rather than assuming the client would understand the technology, I explained the website in practical terms and helped him become comfortable with the tools behind it.

That experience reinforced something I have carried into other client projects: a successful website is not just about how it looks when it launches. The client also needs to understand what they have, why it works, and how to use it.

Understanding the Client Behind the Organization

This project was also an example of the relationship-driven side of my work.

I connected with the client through a shared interest in helping people in the local community. We also bonded over a mutual interest in plants, which gave the working relationship a more personal foundation.

That relationship helped me understand the organization as more than a nonprofit website project. I was able to see the person behind the foundation and the reason the organization existed in the first place.

That understanding influenced how I approached the website: professional enough to represent the foundation with credibility, but personal enough to reflect the people and values behind it.

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Result

The finished website gave the Fausz Family Foundation a central place to communicate its mission, introduce the people behind the organization, highlight the nonprofits it supports, and provide visitors with a clear way to learn more and get in touch.

The site brings together the foundation’s story and its community work in one organized online presence. Its current structure includes the foundation’s About information, board and donor advisory information, supported organizations, and contribution/contact pathways.

More importantly, the project allowed me to provide value beyond the website itself.

I served as the designer, developer, consultant, and trainer, helping the client understand not only what was built, but how to work with it.

My Role:

Web Design & Development

I planned, designed, and built the foundation’s WordPress website, creating the overall structure and presentation of the organization’s online presence.

Content Organization

I helped organize a substantial amount of organizational information into sections that made sense for visitors, including the foundation’s story, leadership, supported organizations, and contact information.

Client Consulting

I worked directly with the foundation to understand its needs and translate those needs into a usable website rather than treating the project as a one-size-fits-all website build.

Client Training

I provided in-home training and hands-on support so the client could better understand the website and the tools used to manage it.

Ongoing Client Relationship

The project was built around communication and understanding the organization itself. Getting to know the person behind the foundation helped me create a website that represented the organization as a real community-focused foundation rather than simply another nonprofit website.

Project Takeaway

This project combined website design, nonprofit communication, client consulting, and hands-on training to create an online presence that reflected both the foundation’s mission and the people behind it

Project Stats

A Project Built Around People

This project reminded me that good design is not just about building a website. It is about understanding the people, purpose, and community behind it. Working closely with the Fausz Family Foundation allowed me to combine design, development, consulting, and hands-on training to create something that supported the foundation’s work while still feeling personal to the people behind it. It is the kind of client relationship that continues to shape how I approach my work: listen first, understand the bigger picture, and build something that genuinely helps.