Introducing Sprout Websites

What’s a Sprout?

As part of our commitment to serving the nonprofit sector, Message Agency has developed a turnkey website solution, called Sprouts, to provide organizations with limited resources access to high-quality web development services at an affordable price.  

A Sprout is a templated website that was designed to equip small nonprofits and foundations with a responsive, accessible, easy-to-manage, yet affordable site.  The information architecture and content strategy inherent in this design distill years of our experience in creating custom websites and brands for a range of organizations. Sprouts enable small organizations with a limited budget to afford a streamlined site that can be easily customized and expanded at a later date to support emerging needs.  

Each Sprout is packaged with services including project management, visual design, and open-source code —giving clients access to our expertise in order to better design and launch their sites successfully.

We have optimized our design and development process to arrive at an engagement that provides nonprofits with a simple site on a powerful open-source platform.  The advantage to clients are that they:

• Own the website and their content;
• Can easily manage and update the site on their own;
• Can extend the site, as needed, if their organization and needs grow; and
• Can access additional low-cost hosting, consulting, and development services through our support cycle.

Your needs are simple. Why not use off-the-shelf or DIY products?

The benefits of planting a Sprout over using other content management systems are:

• You get to work with real people along the way—professionals who have lots of experience in web development for nonprofits. Each Sprout is managed by a project manager, who will guide you through every step of the process.
• Other content management systems have limitations on functionality; Sprouts do not. As your organization grows, your site can grow with you. You can easily add functionality to your site, even after it has launched. You get this power without the learning curve of a custom implementation. 
• A Sprout is designed to fit the unique needs of smaller nonprofits and organizations. Instead of being a generic theme for any business or personal site, our design team worked to create a framework that focuses on the business goals and user tasks of smaller organizations. 
• You won't lose any work or have to start over if you want to make major changes, because the site (and the content) is yours.
• We can continue the relationship post-launch, providing help with your content management questions and other add-on services and support. Hosts will make sure your site is up and running, but they won't necessarily provide support when you have questions about managing your site.  You can also leverage our other digital services to enhance your marketing.

The Process

The Sprout process is clear and guided.  We will walk you through critical steps such as determining a site map, adopting existing features, and preparing your content.  Below, we outline the major milestones for the project.

Step 1: Discovery 
Message Agency helps ensure each site speaks to the right audiences and leads to the conversions your organization needs (donations, volunteers, etc.). To learn more about your organization’s work and needs, and to get you thinking strategically as well, we will ask you to fill out a short Discovery Questionnaire.

Step 2: Design 
Our visual designer and information architect have developed an elegant, intuitive, and user-centered design that keeps SEO in mind. You can select color palettes and typography from our designer’s unique suggestions for your organization’s brand and mission.

Step 3: Development 
Our developers work to make your Sprout uniquely yours! Every Sprout site is optimized for speed and a responsive viewing experience on desktops, mobile devices, and all screen sizes in between. Your site will include an easy-to-update homepage, a blog, events calendar, landing pages, and generic pages. 

Step 4: Training 
Unlike DIY web services, you are never on your own with a Sprout. We will provide you with training and tools to ensure you feel confident as a web administrator. Edit content, add pages, upload images and other multimedia, alter site navigation, and promote content to the home page—Sprouts are easy enough for anyone to use.

Step 5: Site Launch  
Once your content is posted, Message Agency will launch your site on Pantheon, a hosting platform that is known for its performance and security.

The Cost

Sprouts are billed as a flat fee—no surprises. Half of the cost is due at project start, and the balance is due immediately prior to launch. Simple!  

We have created Sprouts specifically so they are primed to evolve.  Unlike other hosted solutions, Sprouts are very flexible and make sense as a starting point when you need a modern, responsive, professional website that lets you manage your own content. 

Interested in understanding if a Sprout can help your organization? Fill out our form below to learn more!

Sprout Interest Form