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<p class="MsoNormal">I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving whether you joined family or hunkered down for a socially-distant feast. Just before the holiday, we kicked off the first affiliate website migration, a three-week sprint that will migrate
an existing affiliate site to a centralized multi-site installation of Drupal 8 with an NFB-branded template and a CiviCRM backend. President Riccobono shared the following project overview and process with affiliate presidents earlier this month.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><b>Project Overview<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">The purpose of this project is to modernize and unify the NFB’s web presence across all of our affiliates and divisions. As you know, we reviewed our Federation brand in 2013-2014, which then led to our current
branding standards. In late 2018, the national board approved a project to unify the web presence across the organization, and I announced this to affiliate presidents at the Washington Seminar in 2019. Also in early 2019, we completed a major redesign of
the national website. As you know, our organizational technology plans were unexpectedly and drastically disrupted days after the launch of the new website. However, the Federation is strong and resilient, and we are back on course. We are now in the phase
of bringing similar improvements to our affiliates and divisions that we have realized at the national level. This will involve bringing all sites under the same technology infrastructure and branding. At the same time, however, we understand that each of
our affiliates and divisions have their own distinct personalities and goals. So to that end, we have provided for flexibility as well. Let me just take a moment to acknowledge Rachel Olivero who originally helped craft this concept with me. The relationships
that Rachel built within the Drupal community are part of what makes it possible for us to undertake this today with enthusiasm and confidence.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">To get the project rolling, we have solicited the expertise of a web development firm, Pumex. They have worked with us before. Over the past several months, our national staff, along with a stakeholder group of
national leaders, has been working with the Pumex team to develop two design templates that you will be able to choose from. Within each template there are many options as far as layout and content. Additionally, both provide a small section that will automatically
showcase national content.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><b>Process <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">As you can imagine, updating more than fifty websites is a huge undertaking. In order to ensure efficiency and quality, we will use a phased approach throughout 2021. There will be ten websites chosen for each phase,
and we anticipate total project time for each website to be a few weeks. When your website is up next, you will receive an email from us with more specific instructions and more exact timing.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">I am confident that this project will make our organization stronger and more unified, and that it will help move our mission forward into 2021 and beyond. Thank you for your service and for working closely with
the team as we improve our infrastructure support for affiliates. It is an honor to build this movement with you every day. I know that many of us are not web technology experts—me included—but we all recognize that the stronger, more unified, and more up-to-date
our web presence is, the easier it will be to attract and engage the members we want and advance the messaging we need in the general public.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">President Riccobono also asked for some preliminary details from our affiliate presidents. I, too, am hoping to get some preliminary info from some of you. For those who are Drupal users (and Drupal 8 in particular), what inaccessibilities
about the routine backend operation of your website have frustrated and/or stymied you? As the president indicated in his email, Rachel established contacts in the Drupal community that will help us to provide feedback, address accessibility issues, and hopefully
roll any fixes we create into core. We also want to address these issues in the training we provide during the process of affiliate website migration. Thanks for any experiences you would like to share.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regards,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">John<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">John Berggren<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Executive Director, Operations<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">410-659-9314, extension 2329 | <a href="mailto:jberggren@nfb.org">
jberggren@nfb.org</a> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://nfb.org/"><span style="text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="210" height="76" style="width:2.1875in;height:.7916in" id="_x0000_i1028" src="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/images/email/2/nfblogo.png" alt="National Federation of the Blind"></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/nationalfederationoftheblind">
<span style="text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="24" height="24" style="width:.25in;height:.25in" id="_x0000_i1027" src="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/images/email/2/facebook.png" alt="Facebook"></span></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NFB_Voice"><span style="text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="24" height="24" style="width:.25in;height:.25in" id="_x0000_i1026" src="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/images/email/2/twitter.png" alt="Twitter"></span></a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/NationsBlind"><span style="text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="24" height="24" style="width:.25in;height:.25in" id="_x0000_i1025" src="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/images/email/2/youtube.png" alt="Youtube"></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation’s blind. Every day we work together to help blind people live the lives they want.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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