YWCA USA (YWCA), a renowned advocate for social justice and equality, recently embarked on a major digital transformation project: migrating their national and 75 local association websites to Squarespace Enterprise. Recognizing the need for a unified, user-friendly platform, YWCA sought a solution that would enhance decision-making, boost productivity, and provide agility across its network. With a commitment to cost efficiency and robust savings, Squarespace Enterprise emerged as the ideal choice. By leveraging Squarespace Enterprise, YWCA ensures that each local association has the tools needed to effectively reach and serve its communities.  

Understanding the complexity of the task at hand, Squarespace Enterprise referred YWCA to Week of the Website, a trusted customer, Squarespace Expert, and partner in website development, to ensure a smooth and efficient re-platforming process. This collaborative effort enabled YWCA to continue its vital work without disruption, reinforcing its commitment to advancing social change and empowering communities across the nation. We spoke with YWCA’s IT Director Matt Preiss and Digital Experience Manager Jackie Adhiambo, to learn more about their experience working with Squarespace Enterprise.

Can you give us some background on YWCA?

YWCA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all. It is one of the oldest and largest multicultural organizations promoting solutions to enhance the lives of women, girls, and families. We have been at the forefront of the most pressing social movements for 165 years—from voting rights to civil rights, affordable housing to pay equity, and violence prevention to health care reform. Today, YWCA and its local associations combine programming and advocacy to generate institutional change in three key areas: racial justice and civil rights, and the empowerment, economic advancement, and health and safety of women and girls. 

YWCA is a national organization (incorporated in New York) with nearly 200 local associations around the United States in a federated model. YWCA USA provides a range of technical assistance and capacity-building services to local YWCAs, maintains the YWCA brand, and advances the organization’s strong national presence from their headquarters in Washington, DC. YWCA USA is also a part of World YWCA, which is a global movement working for women’s empowerment, leadership, and rights in more than 120 countries.

YWCA’s local associations are separate and independent 501(c)(3) organizations with their own board of directors, staffing, and budget.

What drew you to work with Squarespace Enterprise? What were you looking to accomplish?

YWCA's general objectives for the new website platform included a trustworthy online platform that would support marketing and communications efforts by YWCA USA and its local associations, facilitate integration of third-party solutions, and offer flexibility to expand and configure with current digital trends. That was supplied by Squarespace Enterprise, which also met our needs by providing a user-friendly content management system that makes website setup, content maintenance, and content customization easier.

What challenges did you face that Squarespace Enterprise helped solve?

The primary obstacle we faced was time constraints. Our project had a tight deadline and a brief launch period. With a small IT staff, we required assistance from a partner to manage the site migration. Week of the Website offered the knowledge and first-rate project management that made it possible for us to launch all 75 websites on time and without incident. Because of the Week of the Website team's excellent collaboration and sense of inclusion in the launch, we were able to involve internal stakeholders and implement adjustments. Week of the Website gave us a branded website template and a solid design base to work from over multiple design interactions, which has made it possible for us to quickly onboard more local associations.

In our previous multi-site setup, the local association websites’ back end linked to the national website, and any structural changes made to the national website would also have an impact on the local associations’ websites. The ability to maintain their own websites and have back-end access was a crucial necessity for our local associations’ re-platforming. With Squarespace Enterprise, the local associations’ websites are independent, allowing them the flexibility and access to run their websites however they see fit. YWCA is pleased to see local associations implement Squarespace Enterprise features that meet their needs without requiring YWCA’s approval. 

Why did Squarespace Enterprise stand out in the sales process?

The sales team was great. They were able to respond to all of our inquiries, cover every point in our request for proposals, and demonstrate what it would look like to operate inside a framework that would facilitate our main site and local association sites. In response to our request for a technical partner to assist with implementation, the Squarespace Enterprise team introduced us to Week of the Website, who promptly showed their excitement for the project and quickly aligned with YWCA USA's objective. The Squarespace Enterprise team also provided transparent and reasonably priced pricing.

What do you enjoy most about using the Squarespace Enterprise product?

The ease of use. Working on the Squarespace platform has been an exciting shift for us, and providing our local organizations with a tool that empowers them regardless of their technical ability level was crucial. Additionally, Squarespace has provided us with the flexibility to quickly improve the features and functionality of our websites.

What kind of results have you seen after using it?

Our local associations are taking the initiative to explore the platform features beyond their basic website setup without our prompting (e.g., integrating ecommerce, scheduling, and email marketing). Updates and content development happen quickly. Uniformly, we’ve received praise internally for the look and feel of the website, but even more importantly, we’ve received an avalanche of praise and appreciation from our associations who are really seeing the benefits of having a new website.

How is your experience working with an account manager? Do you find that valuable?

Our account manager is well-informed and gets back to us quickly. Regular meetings with our account manager are a great opportunity to ask questions we didn’t get to during development or possibly improve the quality of life for our associations’ sites. Their feedback has been invaluable and we’re already working on improvements to the site template based on his recommendations. We are also able to share our feature requests.

What do you like most about the way your sites look?

Being able to launch a site that felt fresh and energetic was our biggest win. We were able to move away from our primary brand colors (persimmon, black, and white), which have historically bogged down previous site templates and made them feel stale. We like the idea that Week of the Website presented to us of having a consistent website layout with unique page designs for each category of information.

What additional features do you use?

Several of our local associations use events pages, ecommerce, and marketing. I had an association reach out to me and let me know what a game-changer the chat functionality has been for their association. Not only does it give them a chance to speak directly to their constituents, but it also provides valuable metrics to them on the web behavior of the people they serve.

What advice would you give to other Squarespace Enterprise customers?

Work closely with your account manager to expedite troubleshooting. 

What would you tell people who are considering purchasing a Squarespace Enterprise plan?

Setting new websites is fast, and managing content is simple. Make the most of the tools native to Squarespace—there are some great options!

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