Services employed
Web
Church On The Street | Website
Church On The Street, or COTS as they are fondly known, is a faith in action charity that, through the light of Jesus Christ, lifts people out of poverty while providing a space for worship. Based in Burnley and across the North West, COTS is a place where everyone’s welcome – no matter who you are.
They are a one-size-fits-all charity and church, standing in the gaps of society to help those in need. Always changing and evolving, community members are welcomed for a brew and a chat at COTS Bethesda Chapel in Burnley. A church that offers a place for recovery and fights for change.
The brief
Founded by Pastor Mick who has lived experience of homelessness and addiction, COTS is there for all local people, no matter what their story. Due to tireless efforts of the COTS team, and the much valued help from donors, the Church had grown and as a result needed a new website. The goal was to help better signpost people to their expanding service offerings and increase revenue for the Church, to enable supporting even more people.
COTS pride themselves on listening, and as such the support they have on offer evolves over time as the needs of the community change. This meant that it was not only challenging to keep the website up-to-date, but also to express just how varied COTS truly is. The new website therefore needed to be easy to use, but also very flexible to help the team keep on top of updates.
Our creative approach
To ensure we fully understood the kind of services that COTS has on offer, the team from Carbon visited the Burnley centre and was impressed with just how much is available for people to access. This visit prompted us to focus clearly on the website’s homepage section. We needed to ensure it was really clear that anyone can drop, everyone is welcomed, with COTS regular events also showcased. As well as enabling users to understand the services and events on offer at a quick glance, we concentrated too on building the CMS so the COTS team can easily and quickly change what’s happening on the homepage when needed.
The charity also supplied brand guidelines that we really enjoyed working with, applying to the website in an effective and engaging way. We made use of their icons, many based around Christianity, to help the community feel welcomed.
Results
We feel the website really does the brand guidelines justice. It’s colourful and distinct. The website has a voice – that of the volunteers and of the people they support.
Working with the team at COTS was a delight, they were incredibly helpful and engaged in the full project process, from kick off to launch, ensuring that the community members they support were at the heart of the user journey at all times.
“We loved working with Lucy, Ellie and the team! From start to finish they were always on hand to answer any of our questions and stayed in regular contact supporting us in our vision every step of the way. It stood out to us how much time the team put into getting to know us and everything about our charity too! We couldn’t be more pleased with our new website, and couldn’t have asked for a better team to work with!”
– THE COTS TEAM