Cleveland Foodbank - Best practices on a limited budget.
The Cleveland Foodbank is the primary provider of donated food to Northeast Ohio food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters. The Foodbank is the link between manufacturers, wholesalers, restaurants, supermarkets and community groups that have food to share and more than 400 local agencies that feed the hungry.

• On a very limited budget, the Foodbank needed to develop an easy-to-maintain Web site to communicate basic agency information to a variety of audiences.
• The design of the site needed to appeal to manufacturers and businesses that donate to the Foodbank, but a site that was "too professional" would create a negative impression: Visitors would assume funds were being spent on site development rather than on the Foodbank's primary goal of feeding the hungry.
• Site graphics had to be kept to a minimum so download time would not be prohibitive to participating organizations, many of which use older computers with slow connection speeds.
• At the time of development, the Foodbank was anticipating a merger with another agency. The new site needed to be adaptable enough to allow a logo change and addition of a special announcement section with minimal effort.

• Zerotime used available images from the Foodbank's annual report for the site design, continuing the look and feel of their print materials while avoiding outside costs for stock photography.
• The site design made use of background colors as design elements and html text rather than graphics to optimize load times.
• The home page included a block of open space in one corner that could easily be used for special announcements in the future.
• Zerotime reviewed content provided by the Foodbank and made suggestions for proper web format, without incurring additional fees for copywriting.
• Zerotime donated $2000 in development charges toward the completed project.

• Three months after the initial site launch, the Foodbank's merger with Food Rescue of Northeast Ohio was announced on the site. Use of the site by media representatives far exceeded our client's expectations.
• The Cleveland Foodbank Web site was awarded a Standard of Excellence in the 2001 Web Awards.
• One year after the launch, the Foodbank's new logo was was incorporated seamlessly into the existing site with minimal development effort.

http://www.clevelandfoodbank.com