Our website is a vital outreach tool for us. We serve nearly 400,000 residents in Clackamas County, so providing information effectively and inexpensively to our constituents is an important part of our service.
Our annual cost for web hosting is less than 2/10 of a cent per Clackamas County resident. When compared against traditional advertising and direct mail, this is an extremely cost-effective way to provide information!
Philosophy…
Providing more news and information useful to you is our goal. To affect conservation behaviors, we need to reach many people. Our traditional methods to accomplish this (like brochures and workshops) still work, but they are very expensive and consume a substantial amount of staff time that could be spent helping individuals with their natural resource conservation needs.
We still provide workshops, and we will continue to do so. But one problem with workshops is they occur at a time and place that may not be convenient for potentially interested participants. We are adding to our portfolio of online videos so you can access some of this information at your convenience. Our website provides another way to seek more information whenever you are ready.
Site management…
We have several staff members who add new information and help maintain existing information. Our public outreach and information coordinator, and our manager, both serve as “editors in chief” to assure quality. We have a responsibility to be good curators of the content we’ve provided!
Built on…
This website is built on the open source version of WordPress. It is the most popular content management system in use on the internet.
Our theme is was based on the open source Clear Line theme but we’ve made some modifications!
Update, January 2013: We switched our theme to the Canvas framework, a commercial system sold and supported by WooThemes. We have retained much of the same look-and-feel as we had with the previous version that was built on on the Clear Line theme.
Our hosting company is WPEngine because of their focus on speed and security for WordPress-based sites.
Your feedback is welcome…
While we try to provide a useful, enjoyable experience, we are always interested in improving our service. Your feedback is welcome!
Credits…
Our new website header was a team effort by Erik Carr (now with East Multnomah SWCD), Lisa Kilders, and Tom Salzer. Erik took our concepts and fashioned a striking header image.
Who selected our great new web host, WPEngine? Jason Faucera and Tom Salzer.
The finer points of our design were guided by Lisa Kilders, and the heavy lifting of installing and configuring the system was done by Jason Faucera and Tom Salzer.
Our two “editors in chief” for the site are Lisa Kilders and Tom Salzer, but most staff contribute news. Our webmaster is Jason Faucera, with Tom Salzer as backup.
Got questions?
If you have more questions about how we host our website and what it takes to manage our content, please contact us.
