KRC BPC

Penn BPC &
Keystone Research Center

75
Pages
Nonprofit Sector
Government, Political Advocacy
Year

2017

Scope of Work
  • Brand Style Guide
  • User Experience Design
  • Website, incl: Directory, Jobs, Social Sharing, Printer-Friendly Pages
  • Email Template
  • Sustainability Plan
  • Search Engine Marketing

The Tale of Two Websites: How KRC-PBPC Merged Two Brands Into One

KRC-PBPC came to Elevation with two websites (and two immense research databases) ready to simplify and modernize their outdated brands. As a major resource hub for Pennsylvania policymakers, activists, and the press, they needed a site that felt reputable and that made their research easy to navigate.

KRC-PBPC now has one comprehensive website with fresh and modern branding. With their new tag-based filtering system, their research archive is easy to search through, and navigating through their site is simple thanks to in-depth User Experienceconsultations. KRC-PBPC’s new website is the perfect combination of modern and functional.

Two Branches, Reconnecting

Established in 1996, the Keystone Research Center (KRC) is a research and policy development organization in Pennsylvania that addresses economic and civic problems while also proposing new government policies. Within the KRC, the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC) was launched in 2007 as a policy research project that researches state taxes and budgets and their impact on working families.

These branches grew separately, garnering publicity and building a strong reputation among policymakers and the press, while each creating massive databases with thousands of research papers and publications. This parallel growth, along with the success of their blog, Third and State,  made KRC-PBPC realize it was time to reconnect the two brands.

KRC PABPC logos in negative
Challenge #1

News

The Know the Issues internal page is an educational resource designed to provide a data-driven analysis of Pennsylvania’s most heavily debated issues. Simplifying thirty main topics down to six, our goal was to create a user-friendly navigation experience that mirrored the mindset of a visitor. Each page dedicated to an issue starts out simple and grows in complexity, providing data and research about each topic so visitors can become well-informed.

Challenge #2

Research

As a research and policy center, the most important component of the new website was to create a new system for navigating the thousands of research papers and publications KRC-PBPC collected and contributed to over the years. After migrating 1,200 documents, the new tag-based filtering system for document type, date, author, and issue allows visitors to pull relevant research quickly and with ease.

”From beginning to end, the Elevation team has been cooperative, flexible, patient, and professional. The entire team worked creatively with us and problem-solved fairly unique organizational challenges. The end result was exactly what we needed, and we can't say enough good things about Elevation!"

John NeurohrCommunications Director