Republican Party of High Point Screenshot

Republican Party of High Point Screenshot

About:

The Republican Party of High Point (RPofHP) site was an interesting evolution in terms of my involvement.  Again, this was precipitated through conversations with Ed & Anna Currie of Exclamations.  The genesis of the project was dealing specifically with a series of fundraising events over the coming months, culminating in a large dinner to commemorate Ronald Reagan’s birthday in February.  Paul Norcross, Chairman of the High Point Committee was specific in terms of his needs – the ability to register and pay online (while meeting Federal Election Committee reporting requirements) and publicizing the events – through email and social media.  The original conversation started with a discussion of creating websites for each event.  When I researched what sort of infrastructure RPofHP had in place already, the answer was “very little”.  The RPofHP is generally speaking, a new committee, somewhat separate from the Guilford County Republican Party.  (High Point technically spans four counties, with the majority residing in Guilford.)  While I’m not sure what led to the establishment of a separate committee, the need for an online presence was there.

Without any infrastructure to rely on for these events, I discussed with Paul the need to establish it’s own website with all the bells and whistles, and then use that as a launchpad to promote the events.  Rather than “re-create the wheel” each time, we could keep the underlying systems in place and then leverage those.

The site came together very quickly in terms of turn-around.  The site was published the first week of August due to the first event on August 22nd.  E-mails needed to go out to publicize the event and registrations had to happen as soon as that e-mail was sent.  As of this posting (Aug 27, 2013), there are still chunks of content that haven’t been fully completed yet.  Event management processes are still being refined, but I have to say that our first event did have it’s successes with the new registration system.

The site features a feed from the National, State, and County websites that will re-post the latest news onto the site.  This benefits the RPofHP in that as we build out our content and newsletter procedures, we can include pertinent information from those entities.  The centerpiece, of course, is the event management/registration system.  There are also registration and volunteer sign up forms, as well as limited integration with social media.  The site features a directory listing of elected officials, and for the upcoming 2014 mid-term elections, the intention is to aggregate candidate information and links on the site.

I created the header logos on the site (the elephant is part of the original logo).  Additionally, I helped create the e-vite that went out via email for the first event.  There are additional print/online graphics designs in process for upcoming events.

Address:

http://www.highpointgop.org

Features:

  • Home page with news slider
  • Event management & registration (with secure credit card payment)
  • Secure donation form
  • Email/Newsletter integration & management
  • Directory/biography
  • RSS import from National, State, and County Republican Committees
  • Photo Gallery
  • Mobile-friendly (responsive) design