The theme of WordCamp PDX 2015 is about how WordPress is changing lives, a web publishing platform and tool used by 25% of the web. We are honored to have some amazing speakers talk about how WordPress is not just changing their lives, but changing the non-profit industry with the ease of web publishing and social media integration. To see when each are speaking, including those speaking on development topics, check out our schedule of events.

Designing and developing for the non-profit industry isn’t as easy as for a traditional business. While a traditional business site serves customers and the general public, a non-profit is often a community service funded by donations and grants, not income. Non-profits invest in causes not profits, often using as much income as possible directly for the cause and rarely for the website. Their websites are highly message-driven, directing people to the information they want and need, and their events and fundraising – often obeying idiosyncratic requirements set by the same donations and grant programs as well as the laws and standards for their industry dictating what they can and cannot do on the web.

Non-profit sites often have memberships or information available to subscribers. Some even require integration of databases to provide educational, research, and informational data within the WordPress site. The more information on a non-profit site, the more demand for usability testing, studies, and evaluations, designing and developing a needs-based site to serve the non-profit community.

Our speakers are well-versed and experienced in developing sites for a wide variety of non-profits. Whether or not you may ever work with a non-profit’s website, there is much for-profit sites can learn from the challenges and goals of non-profit sites in WordPress.

Designing and Developing WordPress Non-Profit Sites

Jocelyn Mozak is the founder and owner of Mozak Design, and an Electrical Engineer turned web programmer and expert in developing non-profit sites in WordPress. She will be presenting “Helping Non-Profits Change The World With WordPress,” sharing stories and walking through the process and challenges of designing and developing non-profit websites with WordPress that transform the way their organizations work.

She will focus on online fundraising, membership systems, communication tools, video sharing, and a variety of WordPress Plugins and tools that help non-profits to harness WordPress to streamline their tasks, improve their fundraising experience, and keep their focus on their causes, thus continuing to change the world. Jocelyn says, “With WordPress, there is no limit to what they can do. We just need to show them the opportunities.”

Serving a Community with a WordPress Non-Profit Site

Marc Benzakein will speak about “From Homeless to Hopeful,” on his work building community sites for the homeless and to help troubled children, many struggling after their families fell apart. Marc lives in Wisconsin and is Manager of Operations at ServerPress, which develops DestopServer, software for web design and development workflows.

His community work has changed the lives of many by using WordPress not only as a publishing platform but communication tool. We hope that you will learn about how WordPress can be used to change lives as well.

Personalizing a WordPress Site to Make a Connection

Ariel Rule will be presenting on Web Personalization: Why It Will Make or Break Your Business’ Success, a topic near and dear to the heart of this Portland-based copywriter, inbound marketer, and the social media manager for Duda Mobile.

She will speak about building a personalized website for an individual, business, or blog, and how to improve the interactions with potential customers on a WordPress site. Aligning user expectation with web design and structure is critical. She says, “There are many websites that adapt to the user’s personal preferences to increase the impact and give a warmer feel and experience than the average website. This builds better communities and leads to better conversion, thus income.” She will offer examples of how to do this yourself with WordPress in a way that a web admin or web designer and agency can package and upsell to clients.

WordPress Membership Sites

Matthew Eppelsheimer is the principle of Rocket Lift and a core WordPress contributor. He will be speaking on The Story of the New USChess.org: Building a WordPress site in 2015, the good, the bad, and the ugly of creating a huge membership site that tracks and maintains the historical database of every chess piece movement, “in every game, in every rated tournament, for the past 4 decades,” along with news, announcements, rules, regulations, and information on tournaments like the World Cup of Chess and the Chess Olympics.

From Matthew’s extensive experience and WordPress expertise, this promised non-technical talk will cover best practices for modernizing a website with WordPress, and the trials and tribulations of each move. If you are a novice or experienced developer, content strategist, writer, marketer, and project manager, or you want to explore taking a legacy site and converting it into the power of WordPress, attend this presentation.

Educating WordPress Site Customers

Chris Lema will be talking about The Customers Of Our Customers — Educating For Impact, a presentation that takes WordPress as a tool and applies it to customer needs. He says, “Simply giving a customer a website doesn’t mean they won’t mess it up or limit their own potential impact because of silly mistakes.” The CTO and chief Strategist at Crowd Favorite will talk about anticipating customer mistakes and issues to create powerful WordPress sites, whether they are blogs or ecommerce, helping you take your site to the next level.

What an exciting team of speakers tackling tough subjects and showing us how WordPress is changing the world through non-profits, and possibly your work and life.