Habitat for Humanity International: PartnerNet Case Study
Situation
Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) faced a challenge common to many large, geographically distributed organizations: How do you build a portal that can effectively communicate your entire "institutional knowledge" while at the same time making it easy for any one individual user to find (or contribute) the tiny piece of that massive amount of information he or she needs?
PartnerNet, Habitats extranet, is the primary mechanism HFHI uses to communicate with its 1,600-plus affiliates throughout the United States and its partners in about 90 other countries. Its success is critical to the organization and the previous version of PartnerNet was not up to the challenge. It was fractured, with no global navigation, hundreds of outdated/irrelevant documents and an inadequate search engine.
Habitat wanted to overhaul PartnerNet to create a portal that would allow each of the organizations 25 programs and departments to provide service, education and support to their entire network of affiliates. Recognizing that many great ideas come from affiliates - the folks in the field actually building the houses - HFHI also wanted the portal to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing across the entire Habitat community.
To help them meet this challenge, Habitats web communications team turned to AW Systems which, in 2003, had collaborated with them to overhaul the public website, habitat.org.
Needs Assessment
When HFHI first engaged us to take on the PartnerNet challenge, there were many unknowns. They were unsure what technology to use, which applications needed to be integrated, how to manage the content, etc. AW Systems began this effort, with a formal needs assessment in which we interviewed key stakeholders, investigated the technology landscape, and audited existing content in order to fully understand the requirements and develop our recommendations.
Solution
In a very collaborative process, and using Microsoft SharePoint 2007 as a development platform, we redesigned PartnerNet into an organized collection of global and regional program/department websites. We enabled each program/department to build out its own site and, by empowering a team of "site editors," to manage their own content including:
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- a news blog
- wiki
- frequently asked questions
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- events calendar
- document library
- discussion forum
Some sites publish content worldwide while others are regionally focused. To make content easily digestible, AW Systems built a subscription system allowing users to specify their regional and subject matter interest and customize their user experience. The user's home page, for example, displays the latest news, discussions and upcoming events for all sites the user has subscribed to. Optionally, updates and alerts with this content are sent out automatically via email.
A beta version of the site was launched in April 2007 and Habitat has already engaged AW Systems to extend the solution with even more functionality.
About Habitat for Humanity International
Habitat for Humanity International is an ecumenical Christian ministry that welcomes to its work all people dedicated to the cause of eliminating poverty housing. Since its founding in Americus, Ga., in 1976, Habitat has built more than 225,000 houses in nearly 100 countries, providing simple, decent and affordable shelter for more than 1 million people. For more information, visit habitat.org.
-Brett BoatrightWe first worked with AW Systems in 2003, when they provided information architecture, strategy and development support on the redesign of habitat.org. When Habitat initiated a redesign of PartnerNet, our Extranet, AWS served as the lead consultant during the critical needs-assessment phase of the project. As the project enters Phase Two, we have engaged AWS to provide strategic and organizational support in addition to ongoing system development.
Web Communications Manager
Habitat For Humanity International
