Friends of Te Papa

WEBSITE BUILD

Friends of Te Papa is a not-for-profit organisation supporting New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa. Through memberships, events and donations, the organisation helps connect people more closely with the museum while raising funds to support its work.

When they approached me, their existing WordPress website was no longer doing the organisation justice. It had become difficult to manage, parts of the site were broken, and the website was also tied into the systems being used to manage memberships and payments. They needed more than a visual refresh. The whole setup needed to be untangled and rebuilt in a way that would be much easier and more affordable for the organisation to manage, without the ongoing maintenance, updates and costs that had come with the previous WordPress platform.

This became a long-term project, working closely with the Friends of Te Papa committee, board members and their staff member over the course of more than a year. Alongside the website rebuild, the organisation was moving its membership management into Infoodle, which meant the new website needed to work neatly alongside an entirely new system for memberships, payments and member administration. That transition took longer than anyone anticipated, but it was worth waiting for to ensure the website and membership systems worked seamlessly together.

Once that infrastructure was in place, I rebuilt the website in Squarespace with a much clearer focus on what Friends of Te Papa actually needs the site to do: encourage people to become members, promote upcoming events, make it easy to donate, share news and give existing members a simple way to find the information they need.

Visually, the new site is clean, crisp and intentionally minimal, allowing Te Papa’s incredible imagery, exhibitions and collections to take centre stage. The structure is considerably simpler, the calls to action are clearer, and the site now feels appropriate for an organisation so closely connected with one of New Zealand’s most recognisable cultural institutions.

Just as importantly, the Friends team can now manage the day-to-day website themselves. I provided training on adding and updating events, publishing news and maintaining key content, so they are no longer reliant on a developer every time something needs to change.

After years of working with a website that had become more of a frustration than an asset, Friends of Te Papa now has a modern, flexible website they can confidently use to grow memberships, promote events, support fundraising and represent the organisation properly online. Better still, they now have a website they can genuinely be proud of, without worrying about constant platform maintenance or expensive ongoing updates.