Community Foundation of Sarasota County Launches New Website Designed to Enhance User Connectivity, Share Stories of Impact that Uplift Community

SARASOTA, FL – The Community Foundation of Sarasota County has launched a new website to better connect the community with its mission by enhancing transparency and storytelling capabilities.

Site visitors are able to interact with several new features, including photo and video galleries, recurring blog posts, and a timeline of the foundation’s 40 years of community impact. The addition of key Spanish-translated pages also recognizes the importance of a multi-lingual platform and reflects the diversity of our local community.

Notably, the site’s Stories of Impact section was developed to highlight programs undertaken by nonprofit organizations and community stakeholders within Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, and DeSoto counties that have received grant funding from the Community Foundation. Each story is categorized within one of three areas that guide the Community Foundation’s impact philosophy: Community Care, Empowerment and Success, and Belonging and Culture.

“Storytelling is a crucial element for connecting with our community, leading to changing the narrative around challenges facing all of us,” says Mischa Kirby, Vice President of Strategic Communications and Marketing at the Community Foundation. “Our redesigned website gives us the ability to share these stories in a meaningful way and uplift the impactful work our nonprofit partners and community members are accomplishing. More than anything, these stories underline our community’s generosity and willingness to build the community we all want to live in. And that must be shared.”

The website was designed by Morweb.org, a software company and digital design agency specializing in strengthening the vision of nonprofit organizations worldwide. With more than 1,500 completed projects, Morweb.org combines CMS software with cutting-edge responsive design to create webpages that are emotional, engaging, and easily shareable from all devices, including mobile.

“Storytelling was the main focus of our web design for the Community Foundation of Sarasota County,” says Murad Bushnaq, CEO and Founder of Morweb.org. “We wanted to showcase all of the great work the organization does while enhancing the functionality of the site. With Morweb’s blogging, events, donations, and web accessibility features, our goal is to help communicate their mission to a wider audience and grow their supporter base.”

To ensure its website remains accessible to all users, the Community Foundation reached out to the Lighthouse Vision Loss Education Center, a Sarasota nonprofit providing specialized training to blind and visually impaired individuals within Sarasota, Manatee, DeSoto, Charlotte, and Highlands counties. A Lighthouse certified technology instructor generously agreed to test the site using screen reader software to evaluate its functionality, Level AA accessibility, and overall user experience.

"Having a great website is an excellent way to connect with the community and tell your organization's story, but if your site is not accessible to a user with a vision impairment or disability, you are leaving out a large portion of our community who want to hear your story, too," says Lisa Howard, CEO of Lighthouse Vision Loss Education Center. "That's why the Lighthouse believes the best form of advocacy is a proactive approach, we need to help organizations and businesses become ADA compliant to make sure their stories of impact are available to all."

In addition to providing accessibility testing services to area nonprofits and businesses, Lighthouse also offers training and rehabilitation to foster independence, productivity, and improved quality of life for those who are visually impaired.

To view the Community Foundation’s newly redesigned website, please visit https://www.cfsarasota.org/.To discover and be inspired by stories of impact from around our community, please visit https://www.cfsarasota.org/stories-of-impact.

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About the Community Foundation of Sarasota County: The Community Foundation of Sarasota County is a public charity founded in 1979 by the Southwest Florida Estate Planning Council as a resource for caring individuals and the causes they support, enabling them to make a charitable impact on the community. With assets of $418 million in more than 1,500 charitable funds, the Community Foundation awarded grants and scholarships totaling $21.5 million dollars last year in the areas of education, the arts, health and human services, civic engagement, animal welfare and the environment. Since its founding, the Community Foundation has been able to grant more than $274 million to area nonprofit organizations to our community thanks to the generosity of charitable individuals, families, and businesses. For more information, visit www.CFSarasota.org or call (941) 955-3000.