Moving in the Spirit

Moving in the Spirit’s most recent website redesign was still serving the organization well visually, but the WordPress platform underneath it was beginning to create new challenges.

Page speed had declined, accessibility compliance needed improvement, and the combination of themes, plugins, and flexible page-editing tools added unnecessary complexity.

The organization also wanted staff to remain independent in managing the website without sacrificing brand consistency. Giving editors too much control over typography, colors, buttons, spacing, and layouts made it easier for individual pages to drift from the established design system over time.

Rather than redesign a website that was already working well for its audiences, Moving in the Spirit needed to modernize the technology supporting it.

SHERPA migrated Moving in the Spirit’s existing website from WordPress to Statamic, preserving the established design and content while rebuilding the underlying content-management experience.

The new CMS gives staff a simpler, more focused editing environment built around the content they actually manage. SHERPA converted common page elements into structured, reusable components so editors can build and update pages without needing to make design decisions each time.

Typography, colors, buttons, spacing, and layouts are governed by the design system built into the website. This gives staff flexibility over content while helping ensure that new pages remain consistent with Moving in the Spirit’s brand and accessibility standards.

Migrating away from the accumulated overhead of WordPress themes and plugins also created a lighter technical foundation with fewer dependencies, fewer page requests, and substantially smaller page sizes.

The result is a CMS that is easier for staff to use and a website that is easier to maintain, faster to deliver, and better positioned for the future.

The move to Statamic delivered substantial measurable improvements in performance, accessibility, technical quality, and efficiency.

Beyond the benchmarks, Moving in the Spirit now has a faster, more accessible website and a modern CMS designed around how its staff actually works. Structured content components allow the organization to independently manage its website while maintaining consistent typography, colors, buttons, and layouts.

The migration is the latest chapter in a partnership spanning nearly 20 years — continually evolving Moving in the Spirit’s digital presence as its organization, audiences, and technology needs change.

“The Moving in the Spirit redesign shows an organization is only limited by its imagination. Collaboration was key to understanding Moving in the Spirit's constraints and needs. SHERPA's experience helped craft a content-and-mobile-first approach that increased user engagement and successfully met the goals of the project.”

— Jef Blocker, UX Analyst