Case Study: An Animal Shelter Website Redesign That Grew Donations & Adoptions
Overview
Freeman-Fritts Vet Clinic & Shelter is a no-kill animal shelter and low-cost veterinary clinic in Kerrville, Texas, operated by the Animal Welfare Society of Kerr County — a 501(c)(3) nonprofit serving the Texas Hill Country since 1986.
Like many nonprofits, Freeman-Fritts was running on volunteer effort: a DIY Wix website maintained in spare hours, with adoption info, applications, and donation options scattered wherever they fit. The team enlisted me to replace it with a purpose-built platform — one that potential adopters could actually navigate, donors could give through confidently, and staff could update themselves.
Six months after launch, the shelter reports a significant increase in donations, overwhelmingly positive feedback from adopters, and a website their small team keeps current in minutes — no developer required.
- Client: Freeman-Fritts Vet Clinic & Shelter (Animal Welfare Society of Kerr County)
- Sector: Nonprofit — Animal Welfare & Veterinary Care
- Services: UX strategy, information architecture, web design, custom development, SEO migration
- Platform: Hugo (JAMstack) · Decap CMS · Netlify · Anedot · Jotform
- Timeline: ~11 weeks from kickoff to launch — including the holidays
The Challenge: A Volunteer-Run Website Was Costing Real Revenue
For an animal shelter, every confused visitor is a potential adoption, sponsorship, or donation that never happens. The old DIY Wix site was holding the mission back on every front:
- Adopters struggled to navigate. Available pets, adoption applications, and sponsorship options were hard to find and harder to complete.
- Donors had no way to direct their gifts. Freeman-Fritts runs six distinct donation programs — from the Shelter Fund to the Elsa Fund for emergency care — but the old site couldn’t route a donor’s gift to the cause they cared about.
- Content updates were a bottleneck. The site depended on a single volunteer, so time-sensitive updates (new pets, events, closures) lagged or never happened.
- The foundation couldn’t scale. An inconsistent brand, accessibility issues, and platform limitations meant every improvement fought the tooling.
The Objective
Build a website that works as hard as the shelter does:
✅ Make finding, meeting, and applying for a pet effortless
✅ Turn donation intent into completed, fund-directed gifts
✅ Hand the team full control of content — safely
✅ Preserve and grow search visibility through the replatform
The Solution: A Purpose-Built Nonprofit Website
Phase 1: Information Architecture & Content Strategy
Every engagement starts with the blueprint, not the paint. Working from the team’s content inventory, I mapped a sitemap and page-by-page content outline around the shelter’s three jobs-to-be-done — adopt, get care, give — and secured stakeholder approval before a single pixel was designed. The homepage IA was approved the day of kickoff; the full subpage architecture followed within weeks.
Phase 2: An Accessible Design System Around Their Brand
The board loved their volunteer-made paw-print logo, so rather than force a rebrand, I recreated it as clean vector artwork and built the design system around it. When early feedback called the first palette “sterile,” we workshopped a brighter, friendlier color system — carefully tuned so every combination still passes accessibility contrast standards. Playful enough for adoption photos, credible enough for bequests.
Phase 3: Custom JAMstack Development
I custom-coded the site on the Hugo static site generator, hosted on Netlify with Decap CMS for content management — the same custom web design and development approach I bring to every build, and a deliberate fit for a nonprofit:
- Nothing to hack, nothing to break. No plugins, no database, no surprise maintenance bills — and pages load fast on any device.
- A filterable adoption directory. Visitors browse available pets by species, sex, age, size, and adopt-or-sponsor status; staff manage listings from a simple dashboard.
- Streamlined applications via Jotform. The shelter’s editable PDF application became a mobile-friendly online form the team can revise anytime.
- Fund-directed giving via Anedot. Dedicated donation pages for all six programs — Shelter Fund, Happy Tales Fund, Elsa Fund, Golden Hearts, Tributes & Bequests, and Wish Lists — so every donor’s gift lands exactly where they intend.
- Safe, self-serve editing. Every content change is version-controlled and can be rolled back in an instant, so no one can push the wrong button.
Phase 4: SEO Migration & Local Search
A replatform is where hard-won search equity goes to die — unless it’s migrated deliberately. I implemented 301 redirects, on-page optimization, and structured metadata across the new site, with local SEO targeting for Kerrville and Kerr County searches like affordable vet care, spay/neuter, and pet adoption.
The Results: “Phenomenally Successful”
The new freemanfritts.com launched in January 2026 — roughly eleven weeks from kickoff, straight through the holidays. Six months later, the shelter shared this unprompted assessment:
“The website has been phenomenally successful. We’ve received so many compliments from people looking to adopt, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s much easier for potential adopters to navigate, find information, and submit applications.
We’ve also seen a significant increase in donations, and one feature we’ve especially appreciated is how easy it is for donors to direct their gifts to the appropriate donation fund. That has made a big difference for us.
From my perspective, it’s also incredibly easy to keep updated, which has made managing the site much more efficient. Overall, we couldn’t be happier with how everything has turned out.”
— Sonia Mumma, Freeman-Fritts Vet Clinic & Shelter
✅ More adoptions in motion: adopters navigate, find pets, and submit applications with ease — and say so.
✅ A significant increase in donations: fund-directed giving turned generic goodwill into targeted support for six distinct programs.
✅ Self-sufficient content management: the team updates pets, news, and events in minutes, with version-controlled safety nets.
✅ Delivered on a nonprofit timeline and budget: kickoff to launch in about eleven weeks, including board reviews and the holiday season.
Frequently Asked Questions
What platform is the Freeman-Fritts website built on?
A custom-coded JAMstack build: the Hugo static site generator hosted on Netlify, with Decap CMS for content editing, Anedot powering fund-directed donations, and Jotform handling adoption applications.
Why not just use Wix or WordPress for an animal shelter website?
Site builders trade long-term usability for short-term convenience — the shelter lived that tradeoff for years. A static, custom-coded site has no plugins to update, no database to hack, and no monthly platform creep, while a git-based CMS still gives staff friendly, safe editing. For lean nonprofit teams, lower maintenance is the feature.
Can shelter staff really update the website without a developer?
Yes — that was a core requirement. Pet listings, news posts, events, photos, and page content are all editable through a simple dashboard, and every change is backed up and reversible. Freeman-Fritts has managed all day-to-day content themselves since launch.
How long does a nonprofit website redesign take?
Freeman-Fritts went from kickoff to launch in about eleven weeks — including stakeholder reviews, a full design system, custom development, donation platform setup, and SEO migration. Most nonprofit engagements land in a similar window depending on scope and approval cadence.
Is Your Nonprofit’s Website Earning Its Keep?
If your organization runs on adoptions, donations, or volunteers, your website is either multiplying that mission or quietly taxing it. Let’s build one that pulls its weight.
