For so many nonprofits this year, best laid plans had to change to respond to the impact of COVID-19 on communities. Club Esteem, a nonprofit organization offering free after-school and summer programs to economically disadvantaged children in grades 1 through 12 who live in the South Melbourne/Palm Bay area, that meant cancelling their annual Rock the Casbah fundraiser, and shifting the way they delivered their services from face-to-face sessions to virtual tutoring and curbside food pickup.
They quickly realized the need for their services—and the caring, safe, and structured environment that they are known so well for—was even more in demand. Families lined up in their cars to pick up lunches, and students needed access to laptops and other forms of technology so that they would not fall behind in their schoolwork.
Instead of gathering everyone to have a night of dinner, dancing, and fundraising at Rock the Casbah, Club Esteem, led by Executive Director Ellena Little, shifted to hosting an online event, Rock the Quarantine. To be able to facilitate the virtual fundraiser and take in donations, the group knew they needed a website refresh—enter Melvin Figueroa, Founder of Mello Multimedia.
Melvin, a graduate of New England Technical Institute, founded Mello Multimedia in 2015 and made his way to Florida’s Space Coast last summer to expand his opportunities and to plug in to the local startup and entrepreneurial scene in Melbourne.
Mello Multimedia’s main service is result-driven website design. Melvin understands that there are a lot of designers who are capable of creating “pretty” websites, but what matters most is getting results. This is why he focuses on creating sales-focused websites that are geared toward the end user engaging with content and taking action. Each custom website design is tailored to fit the goals of the business, such as remarketing “not-ready-buy” prospects, improving customer service, perfecting sales funnel, collecting marketing data, and more. Mello Multimedia also offers content writing, influencer marketing, logo design, maintenance plans, website hosting, and consultations.
Whether they are a for-profit company looking to increase sales or a nonprofit looking to grow awareness for their cause, Melvin takes the same result-driven approach to each project he takes on. “Working with Club Esteem was awesome because the organization already had amazing statistics and success stories, which made it a lot easier when translating it to the website project. We really enjoyed working with Club Esteem because the work they do has a real impact on the community, with everlasting results,” said Melvin.
The Process:
- 1st Kick off + Strategy Meeting
- Discuss past history
- Understand daily operations
- Discover internal problems that the website can help improve
- Learn about problems with the current website
- Define users we are talking to (parents, students and donors)
- Create goals they wish to achieve such as, student enrollment, target audience. focused design and content.
- Collect marketing data to help facilitate budget decisions.
- Display giving options in a more clear and user friendly manner
The Results:
- Raised over $100,000 dollars with the help of the website making it simple and easy for donors to donate at the “Rock the Quarantine 2020” event this year.
- CE can now visually see how visitors interact with the website and make adjustments accordingly, rather than blindly.
- CE is now collecting data on how users are getting to the site, viewing devices, pages visited and more - allowing the company to make better information marketing budget decisions. This is very valuable information since they are non-profit organization and heavily rely on donor and community support to make the program possible.
- Donors can now easily access items wishlist, give monetary donations and sign up to volunteer - quickly and easily.
- Now fully responsive, the website can be used with any device.
- Website is now able to thrive, scaling with the organization as well as its future growth
“Melvin is highly skilled—both technically on the back-end and creatively on the front-end. His customer service and communication skills are excellent. We love the website Melvin produced for us, and we will continue to use Mello Multimedia for our website and other media needs,” said Kim Deffebach, Board President of Club Esteem.
Based out of Groundswell Startups, Melvin is a key member of the startup ecosystem. “Groundswell has been a great resource and continues to provide access to people and industries we simply would have a hard time gaining access to, or even have no access to at all,” Melvin said. “There is also a great network of people that truly want to help with your success and growth no matter what stage of business you are in. Many times we work collaboratively with other Groundswell Members, which creates an even more dynamic way of working and helping clients. Everything about Groundswell nurtures healthy professional relationships, furthers education, and builds natural connections. If you’re a digital nomad like myself, working from home and other places, it’s great to know we have a place like Groundswell that has everything we need for success and to run my business as smoothly as possible.”
To connect with Mello Multimedia, please visit https://mellomultimedia.com/
To connect with Melvin, please visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mellomultimedia/
