Charlotte Family Housing has been doing transformative work in the Charlotte community for decades, providing temporary shelter, supportive services and a structured path to long-term housing stability for working families experiencing homelessness. The families they serve are primarily single mothers and their children, and the outcomes they achieve are amazing: 96% of families exit the housing phase into stable housing, and on average, families graduate with $2,500 in savings.
The organization’s digital presence, however, wasn’t keeping pace with their work. The existing website was dated, visually disorganized and difficult to navigate, with a patchwork of content that had grown over time without a clear information architecture or design direction. For an organization whose audience includes families in crisis searching for help, donors and volunteers evaluating where to invest their time and money, and community partners assessing credibility, a confusing website carries real costs.
Charlotte Family Housing partnered with Wray Ward as part of their EmpoWWer program to undergo a full rebrand. The new visual identity created both an opportunity and a need – a website that could bring that brand to life and match the caliber of their mission.
Charlotte Family Housing serves fundamentally different audiences at the same time: families in crisis who need immediate help, and donors, volunteers, and community partners who need to understand the mission and feel confident in the organization before committing their support. Both audiences needed a straightforward user experience, and the site architecture was designed to serve both audiences.
For families in need, the path to getting support needed to be immediate and friction-free. The site needed to answer the most urgent question, “can you help me”, within seconds, as well as guide visitors to the eligibility and support application without unnecessary or steps or confusion. The language, produced by toth shop, is intentionally plain and humanized rather than institutional.
For donors and supporters, the site needed to communicate the depth of the organization’s impact and the efficiency of their model. Charlotte Family Housing’s outcomes data is impressive, and we gave those numbers the space they deserve in the redesign. Story-driven content, alumni voices and transparent financial information were also woven into the site to build trust as visitors explore.
All of this built on the foundation of the new clean, modern and warm brand identity from Wray Ward, replacing a visual presence that no longer reflected who the organization had become.
In the months since launch, the data tells a clear story about a site that is reaching the right people and compelling them to act. For a nonprofit whose work depends on connecting with families in immediate need and supporters who are moved to act, these are not abstract numbers.
Approximately 350-400 support form submissions arrive each month, a consistent and ongoing signal of the need for CFH’s work across Mecklenburg County. The form completion rate of 99.8% reflects a site that removes friction at exactly the moment that matters most.
Nearly a third of all US traffic comes from the greater Charlotte area, confirming that the site is reaching the local community it exists to serve. The organic search engagement rate of 70.5% means that the people finding Charlotte Family Housing through Google, often families actively searching for housing support or donors researching nonprofits, are finding exactly what they were looking for when they arrive.
One number does not appear in the stats block but is worth noting: visitors to the “I Need Help” page spend nearly three minutes on the page. Those are families in difficult circumstances reading carefully, finding information and taking the next step. That is evidence of a website doing exactly what it was built to do, which is provide information to families in need and help them take the next step.
Let’s talk about what’s next for your website and how we can help you get there.
