American Councils for International Education Website Redesign & Development

An Organization Focusing on the Success & Accessibility of Education Across the Globe

Since 1974, American Councils for International Education (AC) has made international education accessible for all. And today, the organization has built a global community of 85 countries and 89,000 alumni through cultural and academic exchanges, research assessments, language immersion programs, and professional development. AC’s alumni include everyone from high school students to professionals, national leaders, ministers, members of parliament, ambassadors, and CEOs.

LOCATION: Washington, D.C. (38.9072° N, 77.0369° W)

Advocacy Non-Profit Organizations

Drupal Websites

Integrations

Website Redesigns

Explore American Councils

The Challenge:

American Councils (AC) recently created a new set of strategic goals and brought Threespot, a digital communications agency, for a website redesign. The project's objectives were to expand global impact, strengthen the AC brand, and build a more robust understanding of their work. Threespot partnered with Inclind, AC’s ongoing Drupal development partner, to implement the new design and upgrade the website's functionality.

Before the redesign, the website was more complex and offered a more segmented look at organizational activities. Unfortunately, this sometimes meant a more indirect pathway to information for the primary audiences.

DC-based Threespot provides digital strategy, creative, and development services exclusively for organizations and ideas that align with their progressive values. Known for strong collaborative capabilities, Inclind brings to the table nearly 20 years of experience developing, designing, supporting, and maintaining web content management systems. With AC's mission to prepare tomorrow's leaders for an ever-changing world and its need for a more modern and sophisticated Drupal site, a collaboration among the three organizations was a no-brainer.

“We’ve worked with Inclind in the past, and they’re a trusted partner,” says Liz Ott, Director of Client Engagement with Threespot. “With collaborative projects like this, there’s a real value in leveraging partner agencies for their strengths. Our track record is working strategically with progressive nonprofits dovetailed nicely with Inclind’s strengths as Drupal developers, giving AC the best of both worlds.”

Our Solution:

To achieve the client’s goal of a flexible layout system, Inclind upgraded AC from Drupal 7 to 8. Drupal 8’s layout builder and paragraphs provided a recipe that could deliver that flexibility, allowing them to quickly change out a landing page for an upcoming campaign or announcement.

With Drupal’s migration framework, Inclind easily mapped and migrated existing content and pared 23 content types down to six on the new site, relying on paragraphs to facilitate the ability to add custom design features on multiple pages.

The Result:

By taking a broad view of the entire network of web properties that encompasses AC, Threespot and Inclind connected the appropriate AC audience segment to the most relevant tier of information for its needs. Through an improved presentation of AC’s work, the new site better communicates who they are as a brand and as an organization.

Photo Gallery

Here are snapshots we took along our journey together.

Unearth Our Day Hikes