Crabtree Farms Announces Launch of New Website Created by Riverworks Marketing as Part of Second Annual #RiverworksCares Website Giveaway Contest

Crabtree Farms won the new $15,000 website in a contest to help Chattanooga-based nonprofits.

Chattanooga, TN— October 15, 2018 — Crabtree Farms is thrilled to announce its beautiful new website, the design of which they won in a contest held earlier in the year by Riverworks Marketing, a full-service marketing company based in Chattanooga. The new Crabtree Farms website can be viewed at http://crabtreefarms.org.

The Riverworks design and development teams spent nearly 170 hours on the Crabtree Farms project, which is valued at approximately $15,000. Combined, over two years, Riverworks donated 340 hours of labor to Chattanooga nonprofits with their #RiverworksCares initiative, creating two websites collectively valued at approximately $30,000. In 2017, the Nonprofit Website Giveaway winner was Chattanooga Theatre Center with its resulting new website.

Crabtree won Riverworks’ online competition with the most votes. It was clear that voters connected with Crabtree’s mission: grow the market for fresh local food, support local farms, educate children and families about the benefits of local farming, and grow more healthy food for the Chattanooga area.

“Thank you to everyone who believes in us and to the talented team at Riverworks Marketing for gifting Crabtree Farms a spectacular website,” Sara McIntyre, Crabtree’s Executive Director said.

“Crabtree’s stunning new website, designed by Creative Director Amy Price and her colleagues at Riverworks, seamlessly integrates beauty and function. For years, our small nonprofit farm struggled with organizing and designing our own website in-house and attempting to stay current with technologies. We offer a large number of different programs, which created an impregnable warren of information in our previous website. Riverworks Marketing’s Nonprofit Website Giveaway presented the perfect opportunity for Crabtree Farms to implement our new branding and dramatically improve the functionality and organization of our website.”

The timing could not have worked out better for Crabtree Farms. Shortly before the Riverworks contest, they participated in Make a Mark Chattanooga, a 12-hour design and development marathon that pairs local nonprofits with creative talent in the Chattanooga area. The Make a Mark team assigned to Crabtree provided the organization with a lively and gorgeous new brand package that included a logo, color pairings, fonts, icons, and a new tagline which encapsulates their mission.

McIntyre said the combination of Make a Mark and the Riverworks Nonprofit Website Giveaway has, “catapulted Crabtree Farms into the modern era. We now have a way to communicate and celebrate the beauty of our farm and work to the public, thus enabling us to pursue our mission of growing, educating, and connecting the community to food, land, and each other. Crabtree has grown from seed to blossom during this process of crystallizing our message and communicating it with a simple, visual elegance that still reflects our nerdy sense of humor. We’ve achieved a wonderful vision and brand that, thanks to the Riverworks team, has now manifested as a sleek and intuitive website and digital tool to help our small, nonprofit urban teaching farm to enable many hands, small and large, to experience farm and food-based learning through field trips, workshops, and volunteer programs.”

How the Non-Profit Website Giveaway Contest Works

In addition to Crabtree Farms, other groups competing for the Website Giveaway this past January included The Chattery, Chattanooga Room in the Inn, Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, and The Kidney Foundation of Chattanooga.

“We appreciate all of the groups, their volunteers, and supporters for taking the time to participate and vote in the contest. We encourage the Chattanooga community to continue to support their invaluable efforts to improve our quality of life,” said Jackie Errico, Founder, and Co-Owner of Riverworks.

After 15 days of online voting, Crabtree Farms ultimately won the prize which included a consultation meeting, design, and development of their website, training on the content management system of the new site, and a year of free website hosting with Riverworks.

When asked why she began hosting the Website Giveaway, Errico said, “We wanted to give back to the community and not only provide great nonprofits with the resources they need to fulfill their missions, and, also raise awareness about what these groups do to make Chattanooga a great place to live and work.”

What’s New About the Crabtree Website?

Since Crabtree recently underwent a branding face-lift through the organization Make a Mark Chattanooga, one of Riverworks’ priorities became extending the new brand onto the web. The pre-established colors, fonts, icons, and a tagline helped inform and guide the design of the new site. “I wanted to showcase the awesome work Crabtree is doing for the Chattanooga community with a beautiful and easy-to-navigate website,” said Amy Price of her goals for designing the Crabtree website.

Crabtree’s new tagline, “Grow, Educate, Connect”, was used to organize the site, simplifying the navigation and associating each page with a piece of Crabtree’s action-oriented mission. The icons associated with the tagline that were created during the Make a Mark event are utilized on the website as landmarks, indicating which page the user is viewing. A friendly serif font paired with earthy visual elements help to project Crabtree’s focus on farming and community, while a contemporary full-screen design with “snap-to” scrolling functions on desktop modernize the organization. Scroll and hover animations throughout the site help make it feel playful and light-hearted — key characteristics of the people behind Crabtree. To increase user engagement, a “sticky” header and footer navigation allows users to easily navigate to any part of the site, or to take actions like “donate” or “join newsletter” at all times. The mobile phone experience of the site was taken into careful consideration as well.

Important aspects of Crabtree’s community outreach are their events and workshops, so the site features a robust ticketing and event system, including event pages, ticket sales, email confirmation, and emailed tickets or RSVPs. Crabtree’s new website incorporates features not seen on the previous site too, such as a news blog, recipes blog, staff page, newsletter signup, interactive Google map, and easy to reach donation and sustainer buttons.

When asked about the process of designing the Crabtree website, Price said, “Crabtree is an amazing organization managed by good people that are passionate about what they do. My one hope is that we did justice to the work they’re doing on the farm. Their work is truly needed, and Chattanooga is blessed to have Crabtree.”

For more information about Riverworks Marketing, visit https://www.riverworksmarketing.com/. The company is located on South Terrace along Interstate 24 next to Our Lady of Perpetual Help School and South Moore Road.

About Riverworks Marketing Group

Owners Jackie and Steve Errico provide marketing and creative services to the Chattanooga area, including branding, web and print design, and comprehensive digital and traditional marketing strategies. Riverworks is a certified Google Partner. Riverworks Marketing, 500 Notre Dame Avenue, Chattanooga TN 37412. (423) 710-3866. https://www.riverworksmarketing.com.