What is your Name and Title?

My name is Jill Antoniewicz. I'm the Chief Operations Officer at the Family Institute at Northwestern University.

What do you do in your Role?

I oversee all of our communications, to prospective clients, to prospective donors, to other, prospective students and our master's degree programs. So, that includes our website and includes social media. It includes, email communications, print, all of that, our marketing as well.

It also includes, our fundraising efforts, in support of our research, our education, our clinical services, to provide therapy to folks who couldn't otherwise afford it. And then, the clinical operations side, it means overseeing the client experience everywhere from before they even get to know us and come to see us. From getting an appointment to, coming to see a therapist and then on the billing side, too.  So overseeing the client experience from start to end.

Could you tell us a little bit about the Family Institute?

Sure. The Family Institute at Northwestern University has been around 50 years. And we bring together research, education and therapy, to help children, families, couples from a behavioral health perspective. We leverage research to make sure that we are working with our clients, to help them partnering to see the change that they're looking for in their lives from a mental health perspective.

How did you find did EDUCO?

I was blessed to have Tessa Burton in my life. Who who went and talked to a lot of contacts of hers throughout the marketing and PR world. And EDUCO was being referred to us. I think you'd also been on a list of some of the best, small web developers.

 

If you had to interview web design firms again what would you do it differently?

I can't think of anything that we would have done differently. Tess managed the process really well in the sense of doing research first and inviting key candidates into the RFP process and even having a very thoughtful RFP.

We had a site, but we were basically letting that entire site go and starting from scratch and then we saw that as an opportunity for us to figure out what do we want, what does our organization need? 

And ultimately having our finalists come in for in-person, meetings, presentations, interviews was probably the biggest decision maker of our entire process. While we may have thought that some of our finalists were close contenders, the in-person meeting, then all of a sudden there wasn't a close contender. Then all of a sudden, EDUCO was an obvious choice.

Was there anything in particular that stood out about EDUCO?

"We felt very clearly like we know who we're getting. We know who's behind the work that's going to happen, and that built a lot of trust very, very quickly."

When EDUCO came to that presentation, their style was extremely different than anyone else. On the surface, it was extremely casual. But what that quickly translated into was a desire to be themselves, to show you what you were going to get, whether it was on presentation day or whether it was knee deep into the project.

We felt very clearly like we know who we're getting. We know who's behind the work that's going to happen, and that built a lot of trust very, very quickly. It definitely builds a lot of authenticity from everyone on The Family Institute side. Even in that very first, meeting. I think what also worked for us was the way EDUCO laid out what the build process would look like, and that they used very distinct ways of project management.

EDUCO used both the waterfall and the agile approach which really spoke to us.

Their focus on results and outcomes was also a huge piece of what set them apart from other people we talked to and their willingness to really put that on the table very early on said that that was the commitment that they add to the process and to their clients.

And so that was important to us.

What did you think about working with a small team?

There's an accessibility when you work with a small group that we very much appreciated. And there was a feeling of being a team together, And there was a vested interest in that in the project on both sides. And I think that you don't always get that when you're with a much larger group .

It was the right fit for us - we are a small team. We are a very hands on team and we appreciated EDUCO's being small, though, it's very clear who does what and who you're talking to about each piece of the the project.

There's an accessibility in that when you work with the small group that we very much appreciated. And there was a feeling of being a team together, that it wasn't a vendor type of relationship, but a partnership. And there was a vested interest in that in the project on both sides. And I think that you don't always get that when you're with a much larger group or a much larger organization.

We were not one of many, or at least that wasn't the feeling that we were one of many. We had a feeling of being a very important project at the time and there was as much energy and creativity being invested on EDUCO's part that the Family Institute was putting into the project.

What were some of the challenges of your old website?

The challenges of our old website would take too long to describe. I mean, I think the challenges of our old website was that it was probably built on a bad platform. 

It had been duct taped together to kind of give it a new fresh look, which turned it into kind of a bowl of spaghetti on the back end, the coding of it and it was just leading to such confusion and breakdown on the back end that even nursing it along was just way too cumbersome.

And there was really no management of the content. Right? It was just add, add, add [content]. And so there was no thoughtfulness of what went where, what tied to what. And there was absolutely no user functionality except, you know, a very minor search option. Other than that, it was a it was an electronic brochure that was 400 pages long.

What were the must have features that you wanted in the new website?

We have 80 clinical therapists and what many people who are looking for therapy, what they start with is which therapist would I be working with?

And so coming to this site and having the chance to search based on, the needs that they have or the issues that they're experiencing, the parts of the city they live in, being the languages that they speak. Being able to search to find the therapist that would be the best fit for them was vital to the project.

And we were able to execute on that beautifully both from a user experience, on the levels of filters that we have within the search, but also what appears, when you get your selections or whatever. But the page with the bio for each of our therapists is brilliant. [What] they see on a therapist bio page it was much more, user friendly than what we would have designed on our own. Bringing in the map of where a clinician is located, bringing in articles that they have written in addition to their biographical information, was all added elements that we didn't think of and EDUCO brought to the project.

What was different about this website redesign compared to other builds you've been a part of?

I think one part was a real focus by EDUCO on search engine optimization that all along the way we were concerned and thinking about how the decisions we were making, or not making, were going to affect our ultimate search engine optimization.

And that was really important to this project and given the things that we need to be concerned about, about getting the website to be performing at the levels we want it to be today, the work that we did through the build and the advice and the counsel that EDUCO gave us, with some of our content that we could do both in real time and further out after the site launched, was vital to us having a high rate of search engine optimization.

Did you have a favorite part of the project or process?

I think, you know, early on having a large or, you know, a couple of hours set aside that allowed, my whole group to come together and look at sites that we liked. Sites we didn't like, things that we thought is there any way to get this to be part of our user experience? And that very open brainstorming time done with my entire team and EDUCO's entire, team that was assigned to the project I that was a very creative and, empowering part of the process that also drew the two workgroups together and laid the foundation for all of the future work.

And any times there were things that we had to work through, there was a much stronger foundation, relationship wise. But also we could we could go back and rely on some of the things we had talked about, of what we were trying to get at, right and refer back to sites that we had talked about, collectively and agreed on.

Since you hired a content developer - what did you think about the content development process? 

It's overwhelming. I mean, considering we were developing a whole new site, developing the volume of content that we did was absolutely overwhelming. I think what was amazing was that the content person that we hired and EDUCO worked so well together. Right. There was a real openness to teaming up very clearly, early on and making that work smoothly.

And so because we couldn't, we simply could not have developed the content on our own. That just wasn't going to happen. It was just too much, but it also allowed the working together of EDUCO and the content manager that we hired, I think, also led to more creativity around the types of content we ultimately included.

Was there an area of the build that you found to be really difficult or challenging?

I think that as we started, you know, probably a challenge for us was that once you get into the project and you start to open the gates on what's possible, you might, you know, spend a little too much time with, like, Amazon.com and think, like, we could do that as part of our site. So I think there might have been some moments, particularly around search and some of the things that that for the mass amounts of publications that our therapists have.

I think we may have gotten a little ahead of ourselves in or, or little to thinking we could do too much in the window that we had around search. Right? And so having a way to reel that back in and EDUCO, I mean, do you have to say like you're going beyond scope, right. Those moments probably happen in most projects, but those are always those little hurdles that you're like, really? Can I not do it? You know, and you've got to like figure out your role in how much can I push to make it the best project possible, or how much do I have to listen to my partner who's saying, you're going too far? 

What was the easiest part of the website redesign?

I don't think I can identify an easy as part of the build. I think that the build for us at the Family Institute was really exciting. We had come off of rebranding work, so we had a new, icon, we had new colors, new fonts. We had a lot of things that were starting to take shape and some of them in print, but it was really the website that was going to launch our new brand visually, and it was going to do it internally as well as externally.

So that brings with it a lot of excitement as well as a lot of pressure. but it was really exciting. And so I think we were putting a lot of time, energy input into the entire process. So I don't know if any of it was easy, but I do think the whole thing was exciting and and really energizing to the organization because we were also soliciting so much input to the different parts of the site and from the different parts of the organization and probably like most people, when you hit launch and when we shared the website for the first time across the organization, there was such a, almost an audible like whoa moment, which felt great.

We knew we were making great things happen externally, but the feelings and pride that were conjured up internally because of this new look, this new field, this new presentation of the organization, felt amazing to be able to bring that to the group.

Is there any advice that you would give somebody who's about to take on a rebranding initiative?

I think you really want to solidify and get very firm on what your brand messaging is, and what your, brand personality is. I think you want to feel really confident in that before you take on the website, because there will be so many questions in the website that will force you to know the answers to those things.

And you will also want to be reinforcing your brand personality with other people throughout the organization because it's guiding all the content. And, so I think you really want to feel confident that your rebranding is tight before you take on the website. Because otherwise you're going to be figuring out both simultaneously and that probably will feel like too much.

How does your team like managing content in Drupal?

They love it. I'm never hearing complaints about how hard it is to update the website. When folks are at the organization or coming to the team and saying, I want to do this, I want to add this, I need to change content. There is no grievance or complaint by my team that that's going to be a thing, that that's going to be hard.

When we add pages, for any variety of reasons, it happens quickly. It's usually, you know, held up because of the content piece (the copy, the photos). It's not because of what it's going to take to put those things onto the website. And that's true for building pages that are linked to our donor database that allows for, you know, people purchasing tickets or making donations, or signing up for classes on our website. It's true for the functionality around, clients being able to request an appointment. You know, all of that functionality has been very easy for my team to access on the backend. Meaning the results, the data, as well as to update the website.

How was it transitioning from the build experience into support?

I think is for the on the client side is always like hard. It's a little bit of like, like, are you really going to go? We don't want you to go. We like talking to you all the time. We like you answering our questions.

But it has to happen and I think EDUCO did a great job of transitioning via a meeting that

A. gave us confidence that we were ready and
B. gave us a lot of data and to do's, things like:

• We should keep doing on the site to keep seeing progress
• We should be looking forward to figuring out
• What are we getting out of the site to be able to talk to the ROI of the site

And so I think that kind of wrap up meeting was really useful and important to us feeling like, okay, we're ready to do this on our own and, of course, the ongoing support is vital to you being successful in that transition.

But I think the way it's set up with EDUCO that you've got what you need when you need it.

What sort of results are you seeing so far?

I mean, one of the biggest, easiest things for us to quantify with this website, versus where we were, you know, a year ago, is that we have the ability now for clients to request an appointment.

And so we can very easily quantify that rate if somebody requests an appointment, they begin seeing a therapist that translates into, you know, dollars. And so to be able to put dollar dollars on, you know, close to $450,000 we can forecast off the last year that the website has been launched that clients who have come in and requested an appointment through the website.

Right. We can show that financial value a year in which is, you know, more than paid you know, tenfold for what it cost us to build the website and to build that functionality into it.

We work with a partner in our online counseling program and in recruiting students for that program, they go to another website. One of the best results we're seeing from the new site is via one of our partners (at Northwestern University) that prior, our old site was being criticized as being a drag on their website. But, since the launch of the new website, our partner is seeing nearly an

800% increase in leads.

So they are seeing a massive increase in the number of people who are coming from our website and getting to theirs (degree programs).

Other benefits from this site has been that we've been able to pull together the various publications that our therapists have published whether it's over the years and going forward. And they are because of the way they're organized and they're searchable. They're an ongoing resource for our clinicians. And the collaboration that goes on between clinicians and their patients. People can be accessing these, educational tools all the time. and they can search on them based on the issues that they're concerned about. So it's created an increased way that our therapists collaborate, but also, a way that our therapists can provide ongoing resources to our clients outside of the therapeutic hour.