This is a story about the Choctaw people and their determination to keep Choctaw traditions, knowledge, and customs alive.
Supporting this effort is the Chahta Foundation, a non-profit organization working to empower the next generation of Choctaw people through education and initiatives that bring positive change to Choctaw citizens.
Late last year, the Chahta Foundation tapped Agency Creative to reposition the brand and redesign their most vital educational tool, ChahtaFoundation.com.
As excited as we were to win this important account, we didn’t jump right into design. Instead, we dove into discovery. As step one of our Combustion process, discovery is vital because, in order to build something truly authentic, you have to understand the brand inside and out.
In this case, that meant understanding the Choctaw people. We immersed ourselves in their culture, customs, and mission, investing the time required to truly understand this amazing group of people whose history stretches back longer than any group in the Southeastern United States.
According to Chahta Foundation Executive Director Seth Fairchild, it was time well spent.
“Agency Creative truly went above and beyond to understand the Chahta Foundation brand, the Choctaw people, and our traditions,” said Fairchild. “The efforts they put in up front is woven throughout our new website.”
The new chahtafoundation.com features Choctaw words strategically located throughout the site that enable users to hear their pronunciation and definition read by a native Choctaw speaker.
We also integrated social sharing with a live social feed and a number of places to engage with social throughout the site.
Because the Chahta Foundation’s purpose includes providing scholarships to Choctaw future leaders, as well as programs that help preserve Choctaw culture in song, dance, and artifacts, we knew that simple, intuitive browsing, sorting and filtering was a must. The Agency Creative team streamlined the development process by customizing the existing scholarship management system to add the functionality and new styling.
On the backend, we customized the CMS editing functionality to make client management easy and efficient.
“We are proud of the work our team did on chahtafoundation.com,” said Agency Creative Founder and CEO Mark Wyatt. “We didn’t just build a site, we built a foundation that will serve this brand well for years to come.”
For all the positive reviews from both our client and the Choctaw people, the most important measure of success for Agency Creative will be bringing more awareness to the Choctaw people and their mission to preserve their culture and empower future leaders.
