Sector(s)
Client
SADC TFCA Financing Facility - a regional grant-making and biodiversity financing initiative administered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (IUCN ESARO). The facility supports sustainable financing and capacity building for Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
Objective
Brainsum’s objective was to design and launch the official SADC TFCA Financing Facility website, functioning as a dynamic information hub, resource repository, project showcase, and engagement platform for stakeholders including governments, NGOs, communities, and conservation partners.
The site supports:
- Program overview and objectives
- Funding mechanisms
- Project profiles
- News and calls for proposals
- Access to guidance and resources
This platform reinforces transparency, accessibility, and knowledge sharing for financing conservation across multiple countries.
About the project
Design & Development
- User-centric layout aligned with IUCN & SADC branding
- Responsive, accessible interface suitable for low-bandwidth regions
- Intuitive navigation with clear sections for About, What We Do, Resources, News, and Contact
- Integration of image galleries, project content, and external links to grants portals and partner platforms
- SSL setup and secure hosting guidance
Accessibility First
- Compliance with accessibility standards
- Screen reader-friendly interface
- A design built for adapting quickly to new initiatives and communication goals from high levels within the organization.
Content Management
- Built on the flexible and modern Drupal CMS to enable easy updates
- Structured content types (projects, news, resources) using Paragraphs
- Search engine optimization (SEO) foundations (metatags, sitemap)
Outcome & Impact
✔ Creating Positive Perception: The regional fund's purpose is to be "a tool for creating positive perceptions in the mind of the public/donor."
✔ A component-based page approach using the Drupal Paragraphs module provides editors with flexibility while maintaining visual coherence.
✔ Cost-efficient, yet reliable and resilient hosting for long-term financial sustainability: Cloudflare + Siteground.
✔ A professional, user-friendly web presence
✔ Improved stakeholder access to resources and updates
✔ Easier access and support for grant-making transparency
✔ Central hub for project impact communications
✔ Core Web Vitals: Excellent Performance, Accessibility and SEO scores on Lighthouse audit.
Why Drupal was chosen
Drupal is a proven technology for non-profits and has already been used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
The editors can build pages with reusable content blocks with the Paragraphs module. This was essential to keep the visual look consistent while providing flexibility for the editors.
Search API is our primary way to build search experiences, because this is future-proof. If database search is not enough it allows upgrading to more powerful search engines such as SOLR or Elasticsearch.
Editors can approve content changes via a simple content moderation workflow.
A User Manager role has been delivered, and the Role Delegation module allows to securely create users without involving developers.
