// 01 — Nonprofit / Web Design

Friends Rehabilitation Program

Advancing justice. Building futures.

ClientFriends Rehabilitation Program (FRP)

RoleDesign and build (Carman Creative)

Year2025–2026

ScopeIdentity on the web, twelve pages, giving experience

StatusIn final review with FRP's team — launch to follow

Scroll / Case study

// The brief

FRP has helped Philadelphians get into stable housing and stay there since 1961. The first pass gave them a calmer, clearer site. The rebuild goes further: a proper editorial identity on the web, programs explained plainly, and a giving experience that works as hard as the mission does.

// The challenge

A Quaker nonprofit that has served Philadelphia since 1961, with a name that no longer describes the work: FRP runs homeless services, re-entry and transitional housing, and trades training, not rehabilitation. The old site was calm and maintainable but it didn't say any of that clearly, and it made giving an afterthought. Visitors — donors, partners, people looking for help — had to work out what the organization did before they could act.

A second engagement, following the first refresh. A mission-driven client with limited technical capacity and a sixty-year story worth telling well. The work is in final review with FRP's team.

// The work

FRP — the new homepage: Advancing Justice. Building Futures., with the four figures under it — The homepage says what FRP does in two sentences — housing, re-entry, trades training — under a headline that carries sixty years of Quaker practice.

FRP — About: founded in 1961, out of a settlement house — About — the organisation's own story, told once and plainly: a settlement house, sixty years, and the work that came out of it.

FRP — the Housewarming Fund: what move-in day looks like, an empty room with sun on the floor — The Housewarming Fund page is built as a before and after: the empty room a family walks into, and the same apartment with the family as the after.

FRP — the same apartment, a few weeks on: a family at home — The Housewarming Fund page is built as a before and after: the empty room a family walks into, and the same apartment with the family as the after.

FRP — the Homeownership Fund: renting keeps you housed, owning changes what you can pass on — The Homeownership Fund starts from the block a family could stay on — renting keeps you housed; owning changes what you can pass on.

FRP — the ask: one hundred thousand dollars in year one, $1,500 furnishes a package for a family of four — The ask is a number and what it buys — $100K for the fund's first year, $1,500 for one family's complete package.

FRP — Impact: the numbers, and where to check them — 370 families, 1,500 returning citizens, 11 partner organizations — Impact — three figures and a link to the annual report they come from. The headline says it: the numbers, and where to check them.

FRP — GRIT Workforce: graduates are looking for work in the trades — GRIT Workforce, written for the employer as much as the trainee — graduates finish with hands-on construction training and certifications, and FRP would like to talk.

// The mandate

Rebuild the site so the mission is legible in one screen, the three programs and the pathway between them are plain, and giving is a first-class experience with specific things to give to.

// John's role

↳Reframed the site around what FRP does — housing, re-entry, workforce — rather than what its name says
↳Designed the identity on the web: navy and gold, a serif display face, the arched photography
↳Structured twelve pages across About, Programs, Ways to Give, Impact and Contact
↳Wrote and shaped the copy so each program and each fund reads plainly
↳Built the site as a static front end with a page-build script

The people behind the work

↳FRP leadership and staff
↳A direct client relationship

// Key decisions

Lead with the mission, not the name

The name reads as treatment; the work is housing, re-entry and job training. Rather than explain the name, the hero says what FRP does in two sentences, and the three programs are named in the first screen.

An institution's identity

Sixty years of Quaker practice earns gravity. Navy, gold, a serif display face and one arched photograph give the site the bearing of a long-standing institution rather than a small nonprofit's theme.

Give to something specific

A general donate button is easy to ignore. The Housewarming Fund and the Homeownership Fund each get a page, a story and an ask — so a gift has a shape, and a donor knows what it does.

Numbers with a source

The Impact page shows three figures and links to the annual report they come from. Credibility for a nonprofit is being checkable; the page says so in its own headline.

// The outcome

↳A twelve-page site with a clear identity, three programs explained plainly, and two named funds to give to
↳In final review with FRP's team ahead of launch
↳The first refresh remains live at friends-frp.org until cutover

// Reflection

The first pass fixed how the site felt. This one fixed what it said. The biggest move wasn't visual — it was putting homeless services, re-entry and trades training in the first screen, because a visitor who has to work out what you do won't stay long enough to give.

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