Website Development

Background

CatholicCare Victoria is one of the state’s leading community service organisations, delivering a broad range of programs that support individuals and families across the region. Their services span counselling, housing support, employment assistance, workshops, and emergency relief — making their digital presence a critical touchpoint for thousands of people seeking help.

By 2023, CatholicCare Victoria’s existing website had become a significant barrier to their mission. The proprietary platform they were using was inflexible, outdated, and difficult for internal teams to manage.

Key pain points included:

• Poor content management capabilities, making updates slow and resource-heavy
• A structure and navigation that made it difficult for users to find services quickly
• An inability to customise or extend the site to meet emerging needs
• A brand presence that didn’t reflect the organisation’s modern identity and breadth of impact

With the rollout of a new call centre on the horizon, CatholicCare Victoria needed a website that could support a streamlined user journey, connect seamlessly to back-end systems, and evolve alongside their operations.

Challenges

This was a complex project with several key challenges:

1. Tight timeframes
The site needed to launch in alignment with the opening of a new CatholicCare Victoria call centre. This meant balancing speed of delivery with the quality and extensibility of the platform.

2. Complex scope and phased delivery
Given the breadth of CatholicCare Victoria’s services, we needed to break the project into manageable phases without compromising the initial launch. Careful scope management and phased rollouts were essential.

3. Multiple stakeholders
The project involved input from service teams, communications, IT, and executive leadership. Managing expectations, feedback, and approvals required disciplined project governance.

4. Large-scale information architecture
With numerous services, workshops, events, and support pathways, creating a navigation system that could guide users quickly to the right information was a priority.

5. High traffic and performance demands
The site had to be highly available, fast-loading, and capable of handling significant spikes in traffic — particularly during high-demand periods such as crisis events or campaign launches.

Solution

We built the new CatholicCare Victoria website on a custom, lean WordPress stack tailored for performance, flexibility, and ease of content management. Key elements included:

• Twig templating for clean, maintainable front-end code
• Tailwind CSS for a consistent, scalable design system
• Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) and Gutenberg blocks to give CatholicCare’s content team flexibility without sacrificing design integrity

This approach allowed us to deliver a site that could be extended and adapted over time while maintaining high performance and security standards.

Key Features Delivered

1. Assisted Navigation
We implemented a guided navigation system to help users find the services they need as quickly as possible, reducing the number of clicks and improving overall accessibility.

2. Minimum Path to Contact
Clear, consistent calls-to-action ensure users can reach CatholicCare’s services with minimal friction. Whether seeking urgent assistance or general advice, visitors are never more than a step or two away from the right contact point.

3. Custom Donations & Campaign Pages
We developed dedicated templates for fundraising campaigns and donations, enabling CatholicCare to promote key initiatives, process payments efficiently, and track results.

4. Event & Workshop Promotion
Workshops and events are now displayed dynamically, making them easier to discover and register for. This helps CatholicCare engage communities and promote participation in support programs.

5. Enhanced Search Functionality
With Relevanssi-powered search and customisable result weighting, the site delivers relevant results quickly — essential for users searching a large and diverse service catalogue.

6. Location Finder
A robust location search tool directs users to the correct CatholicCare contact point based on their needs and geographic location.

7. Seamless Integrations

• Salesforce Integration for key forms, ensuring enquiry data flows directly into CatholicCare’s CRM
• Integration with an external forms platform for specialised applications and workflows

8. Bolstered Hosting & Performance
We implemented optimised hosting infrastructure to ensure stability and speed under high load.

Project Management & Delivery

Mainstay worked closely with Gozer and CatholicCare’s internal teams to keep the project on track. Key strategies included:

• Phased rollout planning, allowing critical features to launch on time while deferring lower-priority enhancements to later stages
• Regular stakeholder workshops to validate functionality, gather feedback, and ensure alignment with organisational priorities
• Rigorous QA and performance testing to meet accessibility, security, and load-handling requirements

Outcomes

The new CatholicCare Victoria website represents a step change in how the organisation serves its community online:

• Streamlined user experience — Visitors can now navigate from homepage to relevant service in fewer steps
• Improved content management — The communications team can create, edit, and publish new content with ease
• Higher engagement with key initiatives — Fundraising and campaign pages are more visually compelling and better integrated with the overall site journey
• Performance and reliability — The site handles high volumes of traffic without compromising speed or uptime
• Better data flow — CRM integration ensures that enquiries and service requests are captured and actioned efficiently

Looking Ahead

The platform we have delivered is not just a static rebuild — it’s a foundation for CatholicCare Victoria’s future growth and digital evolution. Planned next steps include:

• Deeper Salesforce integration for enhanced service tracking and reporting
• Expanded storytelling capabilities to better showcase CatholicCare’s impact in the community
• Ongoing security and performance management to keep the site safe, fast, and reliable

By combining Gozer Creative’s design leadership with Mainstay’s technical expertise, CatholicCare Victoria now has a flexible, high-performing platform that will serve their mission for years to come.