A statewide case for maternal health, readable in two minutes
WebsiteLogo
Nurture NC is a coalition: more than forty leaders from universities, health systems, state agencies and foundations, all pointed at the same problem. North Carolina's maternal mortality rate sits at 26.7 deaths per 100,000 live births, against a national goal of under 15.
The evidence for what works already existed. It was scattered across agencies, journals and PDFs, and so were the people who could act on it. So the site had one job: make the statewide case readable in about two minutes, and give a coalition somewhere to point.
Announcements
The newest thing is always the first thing
A campaign launch, a partner survey and a save-the-date can all be live at once. The banner cycles through them, starts on a different one each visit, and hides itself when only one is running. Nobody has to redesign the homepage to announce something, and nobody has to call me.
The client edits this themselves, in the CMS
Doulas are for Every Body Campaign Launched in NCread
Doulas are for Every Body Campaign Launched in NC
First screen
Who it is for, then why it matters
One line, one face, and the name of the thing, so somebody arriving from a conference program or a funder's email knows straight away whether they are in the right place. Directly under it sits the number the coalition exists for: 26.7 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births against a national goal of under 15, set at the size of a headline.
Evidence
The numbers, drawn so nobody has to interpret them
North Carolina beside the national goal, at the same scale, with the source named underneath. Below it the rest of the evidence base goes one figure at a time: preterm births, maternity care deserts, distance to a birthing hospital, Medicaid's share of births. Each carries its own source link, so a dense case stays skimmable and every figure can be checked by the people whose job it is to check.
The client edits this themselves, in the CMS
The coalition
The membership is the argument
Universities, health systems, state agencies and nonprofits, each with a logo, a face and a profile. A health system and a state agency on the same page is the part a legislator reads.
The client edits this themselves, in the CMS
Wayfinding
Three focus areas, three doors
Maternal health workforce, rural healthcare access, public policy. Each card opens the matching section of the approach page, not the top of it.
The identity
One mark, and everything it had to become afterwards
A mother and a child drawn as a single heart, with the white space between them doing the work: it reads as a pathway and as an arm around the pair, depending on how long you look. Out of that one shape came the lockups, the palette, and two patterns built from the mark's own parts. It had to survive a profile picture, a conference banner and a fax, so it is drawn in vector and exists in full color, reversed and solid black. The coalition pulls any of it from a portal without asking me.
Two languages
The same page in Spanish, at its own address
The value-added benefits guide runs as two routes with a toggle between them, each telling search engines about the other. Spanish speakers get a real URL they can share, not a translate button and a hope.
The last thing you see
A pinwheel that turns as you come down the page
The mark's pinwheel sits above the closing ask, and it turns with the scroll: quick while you are moving, slowing as you arrive, even winding back on itself. Nothing depends on it, which is the point. It is the small reward for reading to the end, and the last thing in view when the page asks you to join.
Under the hood
The team edits it
Content runs on an easy-to-use CMS, edited right on the page. A date change does not need me.
Edits appear in seconds
Publishing triggers a rebuild of only what changed. Before that the site could serve a week-old snapshot. Measured live at under six seconds, three times out of three.
The mark is mine too
I designed the Nurture NC logo, so the identity and the site were drawn against each other rather than one inheriting the other.
Measured
Product analytics alongside Google Analytics, with named events on the links that matter, so the team can see which resources actually get used.
Built to move
Built in Next.js, which is what made the Spanish routes, the structured event data and the instant publishing possible at all.
Forms that hold
Captcha on the contact paths, verified on the server where it counts.
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Craig WoodCEO, Definian
Your great work deserves to look great.
Twenty-five minutes. Tell me what you're trying to do and who needs to see it, and I'll tell you what I'd build first and roughly what it costs.