About EastSide Arts: The Project Client
EastSide Arts is an established arts charity based in East Belfast. Founded with the principle that culture and creativity should be accessible to everyone regardless of income or background, the organisation delivers festivals, workshops, public art installations, and community events throughout the year. Their flagship event, the EastSide Arts Festival, attracts visitors from across Northern Ireland.
The charity’s work depends on community trust and public engagement. They needed a digital platform that reflected the energy and quality of their offline work while remaining practical for a small team to manage without technical support. Their existing website no longer met those requirements.
The Challenge: An Outdated Website Design for Charity Events
EastSide Arts’ existing website was functional but inflexible. One of the biggest problems they faced was the difficulty in updating and managing event content. As a charity that hosts frequent and diverse events, the ability to quickly add or amend content was crucial.
They also required:
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Improved event listing capabilities.
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A user-friendly backend for staff with limited technical knowledge.
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A more modern, mobile-responsive design.
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Clearer presentation of their charitable impact.
Importantly, the new website design for charity events needed to represent their values and mission while engaging both frequent users and new visitors.
What We Did: The Website Design Approach
Discovery and Strategy
Before any design work began, ProfileTree reviewed how EastSide Arts’ audience was engaging with their existing site and what tasks visitors were trying to complete. The primary use cases were clear: finding upcoming events, learning about the organisation, and understanding how to get involved as a volunteer, donor, or partner.
Those three priorities shaped the information architecture for the new site. Every design decision was made in service of those journeys, not aesthetic preference.
Design and Build
The new site was built on WordPress, giving the EastSide Arts team full control over their content without needing a developer for day-to-day updates. ProfileTree implemented a mobile-first responsive design, ensuring the site performs correctly on smartphones, tablets, and desktops. Page load performance was a specific focus: images were optimised and code was structured to minimise loading time across all devices.
The visual design matches the character of the organisation: bold, creative, and community-focused, without compromising readability or navigation clarity.
Events Functionality
The most operationally important section of the site is the What’s On calendar. ProfileTree built this as a filterable, easily updated events listing that allows staff to add, edit, and archive events without technical knowledge. Visitors can filter by category, date, host, and price, making it straightforward to find relevant events during a busy festival period or throughout the year.
The section was designed with the expectation that it would receive the highest volume of repeat visits, so clarity and speed were prioritised over visual complexity.
About, Get Involved, and Support Us Sections
EastSide Arts needed their website to perform three distinct community functions beyond event promotion. The About section communicates the charity’s values, history, and current and past projects in a way that supports funding applications and partnership approaches. The Get Involved section serves volunteers and potential collaborators with clear calls to action and specific role descriptions. The Support Us section presents the charity’s transparency and donation pathway, anchored by visible acknowledgement of existing supporters.
Each section was structured to answer the specific question a visitor in that position would have, rather than presenting generic information about the organisation.
Newsletter and Community Integration
A newsletter sign-up was integrated across the site to create a direct communication channel between EastSide Arts and their community. This supports ongoing engagement between events and gives the organisation a direct route to reach supporters without relying on social media algorithms.
Results
Within the months following the relaunch, EastSide Arts’ website reached over 800 organic visitors per month, a meaningful benchmark for a locally focused Belfast charity without a large paid marketing budget. The site now ranks for close to 1,000 keywords across search engines.
Beyond traffic figures, the more significant outcome is operational. The EastSide Arts team can now manage their own content, update their events calendar, and present their work in a way that reflects the quality of what they do offline. The website functions as a genuine extension of the organisation rather than an administrative burden.
How ProfileTree Approaches Website Design for Charity Events
Website design for charity events organisations is not simply a smaller version of a commercial web project. The objectives are different, the audiences are multiple (community members, funders, volunteers, event-goers), and the constraints around budget and internal capability are different.
ProfileTree’s process for charities starts with the same question we ask every client: who is this site for, and what do they need to do? For arts and community organisations in Northern Ireland and Ireland, that question usually reveals several distinct user groups who need clear, separate pathways through the site.
“The best charity websites we’ve built do two things well: they communicate the organisation’s purpose immediately, and they make it easy for every type of visitor to take the next step, whether that’s attending an event, volunteering, or making a donation. When those two things work, the site earns its place as part of how the organisation delivers its mission.”
— Ciaran Connolly, Founder, ProfileTree
We build on WordPress because it gives non-technical teams real autonomy. Training is included as part of every project so staff can manage the site from day one without needing ongoing developer time for content updates. Accessibility standards are applied throughout: charity websites serve broad community audiences and must work for everyone.
If you are considering a website redesign for a charity or community organisation in Northern Ireland, our website design services in Belfast cover the full process from strategy through to launch and beyond.
Check Out More Case Studies
If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out more of our case studies on previous projects: Community Charity Marketing Project | Website Design for Membership Platform | Website Build for LGBT Ireland | Tourism Marketing for Crumlin Road Gaol.
ProfileTree is a leading website Design and Development Agency based in Belfast. We help our clients build a strong online presence and navigate through the competitive digital environment. You can also follow us on our socials for the latest news and articles: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn.
