They help people get to their doctor. Their website got in the way.
A phase-one rebuild that restored clarity — and created space for the brand work that comes next
Problem
The client’s website had grown into something unwieldy — more than 200 PDFs, dead ends, and no clear path for the people who needed it most. Our plan was to start with Brand Foundations, but the client told us the website was the bigger problem. They were right.
Solution
We held Brand Foundations and fixed the site first — a minimum viable website rebuild designed around one question: how does someone go from not knowing about the service to signing up for it?
Back story
Independent Living Partnership (ILP) is a Riverside County, California, nonprofit that runs TRIP — a community-powered transportation program that reimburses volunteer drivers who give rides to older adults and people with disabilities. Medical appointments. Grocery runs. The errands that keep a person connected to their own life.
The program works because people show up for each other, but to benefit from it, prospective riders have to be able to find the program, understand it, and take the first step toward enrollment.
ILP's old website made that harder than it should have been.
The site had been built on WordPress — a platform that's fairly easy for most people to make content updates and day-to-day edits. But maintaining a WordPress site over the long term means staying on top of plugin conflicts, PHP version updates, and the kind of technical upkeep that quietly becomes someone's job.
For a nonprofit where every hour is spoken for by the mission, that's not a manageable ask. It's an unfair one. So, the site didn't get updated. Content piled up: more than 200 PDFs, overlapping information, and dead ends. A site that had grown into something unwieldy — not because anyone made bad decisions, but because everyone was busy doing the actual work.
The result was a public face that no longer reflected the organization behind it.
ILPConnect.org, rebuilt in Squarespace— a site ILP's team can maintain over time and their riders can actually use every day.
Build the container first
Our plan had been to start with Brand Foundations — the work of clarifying ILP's messaging, voice, and brand personality — but the website was hampering its ability to fulfill its mission.
Together with ILP, we made a call: hold Brand Foundations and fix the site first.
We rebuilt from scratch in Squarespace — a platform designed for organizations that need a professional, maintainable web presence without a developer on retainer. No PHP updates to worry about. No plugin conflicts lurking in the background. Just a site that ILP's team can actually own.
The build itself was intentionally restrained: 12 pages, clear navigation, plain-language content designed around one question above all others — how does someone go from not knowing about the service to signing up for it? We translated document-heavy content into readable web pages, built in required compliance pages, and held back every feature that wasn't essential. No news hub. No resource library. No document archive.
Because ILP didn't need them just yet.
What they needed was a site that works for them and, more importantly, for the rider who isn't sure if they qualify, for the family member helping a parent navigate the process, for anyone who lands on the homepage and needs to understand what TRIP is and what to do next.
What comes next
The new site is already being described as a major improvement. That matters. But so does what it makes possible. Brand Foundations comes next, and now there's a place for that work to live: a site that's clean, maintainable, and structured to evolve.
We stabilized the system first. Now the story has room to land.