New StayClassy Website to be Released Jan 2010!

We are set to release a brand new website in January of 2010 - one that FAR exceeds the capabilities of the current website. If you are new to StayClassy, a sentence description of what we do is in order:

We provide an innovative online fund raising platform for non-profit organizations, allowing them to expand their donor base, effectively communicate with their members, and raise more money, faster.

There are two types of people who use our website:

1) People who work or volunteer for a charity.
2) Anyone in the world who wants to support a charity by hosting or attending a fundraising event

With these user groups in mind, our goal was to greatly enhance features on the current site, like creating/hosting fundraising events & campaigns, purchasing tickets, and meeting and communicating with nonprofits. The current website was designed specifically for our own company-hosted events, like the Elemental Experience. The new website gives our users the ability to run their own events and fundraising campaigns, without the involvement of StayClassy staff (although we are always there to help!). The idea to give anyone in the world the ability to support their favorite cause by hosting an event or fundraising campaign. For nonprofits, we have built a very slick donor management system so that they can keep track of all these new supporters! To summarize, we are enhancing features of our online community, that serves to connect non profits and people across the globe.

We started mapping out the new site over 5 months ago, one rainy evening in our San Diego office (rain added for dramatic effect - it doesn't rain here!). Below is one of those initial sketches in powerpoint that shows how the site is laid out at a very high level.

Basic Architecture & Functionalities - StayClassy 3.0

As you can see (kind of), the site is broken down into three main categories: Events, Charities, and Members. There are pages for each individual event that has been created on the site, there are pages (profiles) for each charity who has registered on the site, and there are profiles for each member who has signed up. Going too deep into the architecture is boring (for most), so we'll end it here, and follow up with a few posts that show the differnet parts of the new site.

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OUR WEBSITE HISTORY:

Sept 2006: Web contruction begins on StayClassy 1.0

Jan 2008: StayClassy 1.0 is released (yes, it took us well over a year - yikes!)

The Next Day, 2008: Contruction begins on StayClassy 2.0

Jan 2009: StayClassy 2.0 is released (we're getting better at this point)

June 2009: Concept drawings & basic architecture for StayClassy 3.0 begins

August 2009: StayClassy moves over to the Zend framework & programming begins (insert shovel in ground here).

September 2009: StayClassy partners with Digital Telepathy to help with user interface and experience desgin.

October 2009: NOW - we're going strong!