Mosaic Strategies Group

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive director of Triangle Community Center. It is an LGBTQ community center in Connecticut. The center supports recovery programs, health and wellness programs, and youth groups in Greater Fairfield County. We do case management and social service navigation as well as training other social service agencies on cultural competency with the LGBTQ community. Every year, we also hold a number of special events.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mosaic Strategies?

When we first started working with Mosaic, the organization had just hired its first staff person. I was that staff person, and I wanted to work on the organization’s online presence. That was critical for us at the time. We first found NationBuilder, which seemed like a great system.

The primary purpose of our website was to promote our programs and services, but we also planned to use it for special events and e-commerce transactions. We had so many that it was vital for us to have a calendar that was easy for us to manage. Aside from being easy to update, the site also had to be easy for our visitors to read.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mosaic started by building an email template for us. Then, we asked them to redesign our website on the NationBuilder platform. It’s a complicated system that requires specialized knowledge. Fortunately, Mosaic is considered an expert on that platform, among the many other things they do. I can’t imagine working with anyone else on this system because they know it so well. Mosaic built a custom calendar feature for us. They’ve also come up with solutions to make our marketing easier.

How did you come to work with Mosaic Strategies?

I found Mosaic on one of NationBuilder’s reference pages. I interviewed a few of the consultants listed on NationBuilder, and Mosaic was the friendliest and the most accommodating. They turned out to be a really good fit for us. Once I talked to Francesca, it seemed like an obvious choice to work with them. They understood our needs and that we were a small organization.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them on the website in December 2014, and it was launched in February 2015. Mosaic continues to provide ongoing support for all of our digital needs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Our website traffic has increased significantly over the last few years. Our email list has grown from 600 people to over 3,000 in the last 3 years. That’s great for us because we’re focused locally. Those are all emails in Fairfield County. Our site has 5,000–6,000 unique visitors per month, and I’ve only received very good feedback. Folks are very impressed with how professional and polished the site looks. I think that’s helped folks sign up and visit the site. That’s all attributed to Mosaic’s work.

How did Mosaic Strategies perform from a project management standpoint?

They are excellent. We primarily interact with Francesca, who’s become a friend. She’s a pleasure to work with and a pleasant person. She’s very smart and very quick. Whenever we have a question or problem, she’s always able to find solutions for us.

Francesca is one of the higher people in the company, and she’s doing the work herself. She’s always accessible to us year-round. If we ever have a question, she always responds. We communicate through email. She is very transparent about deadlines and expectations. I find her very easy to work with.

What did you find most impressive about Mosaic Strategies?

Being in the LGBTQ community, we’re always unsure how welcoming or accommodating people will be about the work we’re doing. Mosaic has been incredible. I don’t think we could’ve found a better firm to work with. I’m so happy we found them. They are a high-caliber consulting firm, but they make it a point to be accessible to a small nonprofit like us. Sometimes, it feels like we’re their only client. They try to work with us in an accessible manner, and I really appreciate that.

Are there any areas Mosaic Strategies could improve?

Their invoices go to my spam box sometimes, and then I would get a follow-up a month later. Sometimes, they don’t get paid as soon as they should.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're an early childhood to 8th grade private school in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I’m the director of technology at that school.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mosaic Strategies?

We had a pretty remedial website and wanted to really modernize it, because that's our face to the world. We worked with them to both improve the website and expand on its database.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It was a fairly complex project. They created our website and designed it. We were talking about either Drupal or WordPress for the website, and I didn't really love Drupal, which I had used years ago for the old site. WordPress seemed very flexible, so we used that and continue to do so in order to build out the site. They didn’t provide other services to us outside of web development and design.

One of the major components of that website was that it included creating a fairly complex, large database where parents were able to log in and see all of their student's information. There were a number of relationships that would need to be made from parent to student, parent to program, and the like.

The database is fairly unique. That is a product that a lot of companies sell, but we’re very specific in that our students are of the population where they have learning differences, so we have unique things that we need to ask.

Part of that database was that they also built the admissions component, so that families will come to the website in order to start that admissions process and smoothly transition all the way through application and enrollment. We have very specific needs for that. They were able to accommodate those and build that admissions piece as well.

We also have an internal database that uses FileMaker. We needed them to link that information from the website to FileMaker, and they were able to do that as well. That way, any information then transfers to our internal database. Then the opposite way, when we write our progress reports or report cards, they’re composed in that FileMaker database. We worked with Mosaic to publish them up to the website so that parents had access to those.

From the beginning, I was in communication with Geoffrey Borshof [founder, partner], and that’s where the project started. They brought over a couple of designers that were helping us. As far as the development side of it, we had two or three developers, but there were two core developers that we worked with, and still work with at this point.

How did you come to work with Mosaic Strategies?

I had known Geoffrey from previous business, so I had already known their business. I gave them a call as part of our bidding process. When we did our RFP process, we had a couple of vendors. They had great designs, but in speaking with them, it was more about just their communication skills and their ability to make us feel that they were going to give us what we needed and that way they were going to be very easy to work with. We didn't get that feeling from the others.

It just seemed that Mosaic had the ability to create that database that we needed; that was even more so from talking to the developers that they had, too. The other teams seemed a little more into the design. While the design is important, it was the backend, the CMS, that was really key for us.

How much have you invested with Mosaic Strategies?

For the whole development of the first part of the site, I think it was somewhere around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first started our discussions in October or November 2013. The launch of the website was at the end of May 2014. The goal was to have that new website ready to go for our parents to be able to log in and update their information before the school year ended. Some things were still done on paper, so this was a culture shift for the school itself, because we wanted to get parents starting to get used to the idea of everything being digital and convenient.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The functionality of the website is great, and we have been adding a lot more. Occasionally, there will be a bug because there's a WordPress update. We retained Mosaic on a maintenance plan, so they’re available to help us with anything like that. I would say that would be the only thing—just staying on top of maintenance. We try to stay ahead of that by scheduling maintenance when there's downtime in the school year or anything like that. Otherwise, the website has been fairly reliable.

The other piece would be anticipating our server against how much usage it would get. Occasionally, there are high-volume times, like when everybody is checking for their report cards or signing up for specific events. That was more of a learning curve for us because we weren't sure how much the parents would affect the usage. We have worked it out, and I'm always making them aware of high-traffic time, so that way they are on top of it. For example, if everybody is checking today for their report cards, they will monitor it just in case to make sure nothing gets taxed.

How did Mosaic Strategies perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great. We started with Pivotal Tracker, which is a great way for everybody to communicate and follow updates. We were all on the same page and could communicate on that. From the budget standpoint, it was right on.

I always felt that our needs were being met. When we would schedule a call, as the website was being built, they were always available for us to answer our questions. It didn't matter the number of people; somebody was always there to help. That was the most important thing to me.

What did you find most impressive about Mosaic Strategies?

One of the biggest assets are the developers they have. There are some big fish out there for this kind of a product, and we decided to go customized. They were really able to bring it home for us and get us what we needed.

Even moving forward, as we started to have other needs, they really will bring up something and then come back to us in a short period of time with a couple of suggestions and various cost levels such as “Do you want to spend this much time on it and you'll get this? Or do you want to spend this much and you'll get something a little more complicated?” I really enjoy the fact that they're always willing to give us those options and consider what budget may go with that as well.

Are there any areas Mosaic Strategies could improve?

Everybody always has some areas of improvement. I think it might go back to the initial communications. Oftentimes, things that we request aren't necessarily translated to the developer. Developers think in a very specific way. Initially, that was an issue, but we've gotten over that. Some of the buggy stuff in the beginning was a bit frustrating, but we've gotten ahead of that and learned from that process.