The Mountaineers Keep Climbing
Some non-profits fund raise for major technology upgrades, then breathe a sigh of relief and ignore technology until things start breaking. Rinse and repeat. Other non-profits avoid this feast-or-famine approach to technology spending by budgeting for continuous improvements. The Mountaineers is in the latter camp. In 2014 they completed a major technology upgrade and launched a new Plone+Salesforce website. Every year since, they have budgeted for significant improvements to their website and its Salesforce.com back end. They did this through modest support contracts with their technology partners (Jazkarta and Percolator Consulting), plus focused spikes of work that were done through a series of agile iterations. Over the last 3 years we have released enhanced versions of the website 10 times, with an overwhelming number of improvements – you can read all about that on their technology blog. These changes have allowed members, staff, volunteers, instructors, and the organization to get better and better at what they do.
The latest update is the biggest one yet. It has brought mountaineers.org and mountaineersbooks.org together into one, integrated website. The new and improved header and main navigation helps users know where they are and get to where they’re going. It looks great! We’re really proud to have helped bring it into the world.
Jazkarta Sponsors Northwest Youth Leadership Summit
Jazkarta is pleased to have recently sponsored the North Cascades Institute‘s Northwest Youth Leadership Summit. This event is intended to empower Cascadia’s future leaders in conservation by:
- Enhancing their skills in preparation for job and college applications
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Connecting with regional environmental organizations and businesses to learn about jobs and internships
- Learning from like-minded peers about career options available in the conservation, outdoor and environmental fields
More than 220 students participated and are now better equipped to take action towards conservation. The Summit was free to all participants to ensure that underrepresented youth are given opportunities to get involved in the outdoor and environmental fields.
The sponsorship added another dimension to our existing partnership with North Cascades Institute. Just before the summit, we had given the non-profit’s Plone+Salesforce website a mobile refresh to make it work smoothly on phones and tablets. If we say so ourselves, the results are quite beautiful. Kudos to Neal Maher for the designs and to the Jazkarta team (Christine Winckler and David Glick) for a smooth implementation.
North Cascades Institute is not the only environmental non-profit organization that Jazkarta is working with – we created The Mountaineers‘s website and the Washington Trails Association ‘s volunteer management system. Both organizations were involved in the Summit. It was hosted at The Mountaineers’ Seattle Program Center, here is one of the students using the climbing wall.
Andrew Pringle of the Washington Trails Association led a breakout session titled “Trip Planning 101: An Introduction to Leading Backcountry Adventures”, and both organizations ran booths, talking with participants about activities, internships and employment options for young outdoor leaders. Here’s Andrew at the WTA booth.
We feel very lucky to be helping all of these organizations further their missions.
— Photos by North Cascades Institute staff
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