Cepaim

How do you create a digital platform that not only promotes social inclusion, but also facilitates real change? By developing a website that offers a seamless, user-centred experience for the diverse communities it serves.

The Cepaim Foundation and its mission

The Cepaim Foundation is a Spanish non-profit organisation founded in 1992, dedicated to promoting social inclusion and equal opportunities for people in vulnerable situations. Whether they are immigrants, refugees, victims of gender violence or people facing social exclusion, Cepaim works to provide support and create opportunities. With 39 regional centres in 10 Autonomous Communities, as well as a presence in Morocco and Senegal, Cepaim reaches out to a wide audience to offer comprehensive assistance across borders.

As part of its mission to strengthen community support, Cepaim wanted to redesign its digital presence. The goal was to create a platform capable of not only hosting a wide range of resources, but also offering an intuitive, scalable and secure user experience. The answer came in the form of Drupal, a flexible, modular and highly customisable content management system (CMS) that perfectly fits Cepaim's objectives.

Project goals: Redefining the digital experience.

The main objective of the redesign of the Cepaim Foundation's website was to create an attractive and user-friendly platform that would allow the organisation to continue its social mission while improving its digital reach. The new website required a clean and adaptable design with a structured navigation system, while at the same time being able to support the complex backend functionalities for internal use that were required or existed previously. Below we will detail the crucial aspects that were addressed in the redesign of CEPAIM's digital personality.
 

Redesigning the branding and architecture of the new website

To achieve these objectives, the first step was to create a complete re-mapping and re-design of the website.  This restructuring of the architecture was not trivial, but involved a major effort of re-signification and rethinking of existing information by CEPAIM staff, in close collaboration with our team and that of our design partner DIGA. As a result of this re-categorisation and restructuring of the information, new sections were created within the website, such as ‘Lines of intervention’ or ‘Didactic materials’, and the navigation system was rationalised through structured menus to guarantee ease of use for both visitors and administrators. All of this has allowed the information to be much more ordered and easier to understand, both for the target audience of the website and for CEPAIM staff. 

In addition, following a redesign of CEPAIM's corporate image and brand (carried out by DIGA), a new and improved responsive user interface was created and subsequently developed. Following the ‘Mobile first’ philosophy, which consists of prioritising the creation of web experiences optimised for mobile devices before adapting them to larger screens, a simple, fast and functional interface was created, eliminating unnecessary elements. This approach ensures accessibility and performance in the most restrictive environment to improve the overall experience.

Content development and management

Thanks to the robust content management capabilities of Drupal, in combination with the integration of the VLsuite module, the team implemented a versatile template system, which allows to handle with ease the different types of information handled in CEPAIM, as diverse as crowdfunding campaigns, surveys, educational materials, etc.  This system covers both dynamic and static models, offering structures adaptable to different needs.

Furthermore, the VLSuite module has not only facilitated the creation of landings, reusable content blocks and customisable templates, thus ensuring the flexibility of the system, but also allows non-technical staff to manage the content efficiently and autonomously, due to its easy handling and previews of the final result.

Finally, it was necessary to migrate all the content from the previous WordPress platform. This was done in a mixed process, partly automated and partly manual, in a process in which, to get an idea of its magnitude, more than 6000 nodes, 16000 images and 700 documents were migrated among other contents. This exhaustively accurate migration system ensured the preservation of all valuable data and allowed for a smooth transition to Drupal.

Enhanced user management and private area

The platform also offered a private area for internal management, including content and multimedia management, document management and reporting on campaigns, donations and partnerships. User roles and permissions were carefully defined to ensure secure access and smooth administration of these resources.

Of particular note was the integration of CIVICRM customer relationship management software for the management of user-related information: accounts, account iterations, lead capture and segmentation, etc. This CRM was chosen because it is open source, designed for non-profit organisations (it can manage donations, memberships, events and campaigns efficiently if desired at some point), highly customizable and can be integrated with systems such as Drupal, Joomla and WordPress.
 

Interactive maps and search functions

One of the most outstanding features of the new website are the interactive maps, which allow users to easily locate and access information about Cepaim's centres.

In addition, the implemented SOLR and facet-based search functionality offers powerful faceted and semantic search capabilities that have greatly enhanced the user experience.

Donations and partnerships system

The donation system has been another critical component, developed using Drupal Commerce, Webform and a recurring payment system through PayPal, whose adaptation to Drupal and Commerce had to be developed ad hoc, since it did not exist, giving birth to the drupal/commerce_paypal_subscriptions module. This now allows Cepaim to seamlessly manage online donations, crowdfunding efforts and partnership programmes.

Real-time SEO and translation

SEO optimisation has been achieved through the Metatag module and a comprehensive configuration, ensuring better visibility. The platform also includes Google Translate for real-time machine translations, catering to Cepaim's diverse international audience.

Integration with other key tools

Finally, Drupal's robust API has enabled seamless integration with tools such as Mailchimp for digital marketing and mailing automation, and the Google Analytics web analytics tool for collecting, measuring and analysing data on user behaviour on websites and applications. 
 

Key modules in the development that you should know

To build such a complete platform, several key Drupal modules were used, among which we highlight:

• drupal/vlsuite: For flexible creation of landings and templates, and content management.
• drupal/civicrm: For account, organisation and communication management.
• drupal/commerce: For transaction management, including donations and partnerships.
• drupal/search_api_solr and drupal/facets: For powerful SOLR search and facet filtering.
• drupal/webform: For creating forms for donations, surveys, event registrations, contacts, etc.

In addition, tools such as drupal/metatag, drupal/google_tag and drupal/mailchimp for SEO, analytics and email marketing were integrated.

Community Contributions

Thanks to this project we have made important contributions to the Drupal community. Among them we highlight two: The WordPress Migrate SQL module, which has simplified migrations from WordPress to Drupal using databases instead of XML files, and the drupal/commerce_paypal_subscriptions module, which allows modern management of PayPal subscriptions within a commerce-enabled Drupal.
 

Top 5 reasons why Drupal was the ideal choice for CEPAIM

The Cepaim Foundation needed a platform capable of managing different types of content, offering flexibility in the composition of the pages and adapting to the growth of the organisation. Drupal was chosen for several key reasons, of which we highlight these 5:

1. Modular flexibility: Drupal's architecture allows for customisation and ease of integration with other systems, such as CRM and external APIs.
2. Scalability: Cepaim needs a site that can grow with its expanding network of regional centres and international projects.
3. SEO friendly: To improve visibility and reach, the Drupal system, combined with tools such as Metatag and Google Tag Manager, makes it easy to optimise the website for search engines.
4. Integration capability: The platform needs strong API support, especially to integrate with Mailchimp, Google Analytics and other tools that streamline communication and data collection.
5. Cost-effectiveness: As a non-profit organisation, Cepaim needs a solution that is not only powerful, but also cost-effective, and Drupal is a perfect fit.

Building an empowerment platform

Cepaim's redesigned website is more than just a digital platform: it is an empowerment tool to drive social change and inclusion. Thanks to the excellent work of CEPAIM's staff, in a joint effort with DIGA and our team, a seamless integration of various necessary functionalities, along with a user-friendly interface, has been achieved, ensuring that the important mission of helping vulnerable populations can continue efficiently and effectively.

Now, with its scalable and flexible Drupal-based website, Cepaim is better equipped to expand its social impact and maintain strong connections with the communities it serves.

Want to transform your digital presence? Contact us to discuss how we can create a solution tailored to your needs.