Most nonprofit organization website administrators aren't trained web developers — they're program staff, volunteers, or a single marketing hire wearing many hats, often with limited technical resources or budget to call in a developer for every content update. That's exactly why JMS built the Horizons for the Blind site on WordPress with advanced custom fields — so administrators without coding experience could confidently edit pages, add content, and maintain the site themselves. Pairing that with hands-on training and both digital and print manuals meant the organization wasn't left dependent on outside help just to keep the site current, which is often where nonprofit sites quietly go stale or accessibility gains erode over time.
Challenge
This nonprofit’s mission is to improve equitable opportunities through inclusion for the blind and visually impaired, while helping companies accelerate their connection to this $13.2 billion market. However, an outdated website with stale content and a shifting service lineup held that mission back — the site lacked accessibility features and had no analytics in place to track visitor activity.
Solutions
Drawing on JMS Marketing’s deep experience in digital marketing and WordPress site development, the team applied its standard phased approach — the same proven process used across all of their WordPress projects — starting by defining goals and audience needs, then mapping out site architecture and navigation. Rather than retrofitting compliance onto a finished design, accessibility requirements shaped the architecture, layout, and content decisions from day one, reflecting JMS’s commitment to building accessibility in rather than bolting it on.
From there, the project moved into content and visual design, then development on WordPress with Advanced Custom Fields and built-in accessibility features for easy client-side updates, finishing with thorough testing before launching to the public. JMS’s content and design team crafted clear messaging and polished visuals that gave visitors a stronger impression of this professional organization. Leveraging its digital marketing expertise, JMS also set up Google Analytics to track site performance, ensuring the client could measure ongoing engagement. To round out the engagement, JMS held a dedicated training session for site administrators and provided both digital and print user manuals once the site was launched.
Result
JMS marketing built a website that adheres to accessibility standards and guidelines and is accessible to the widest possible audience, that translated into clear heading hierarchy and logical page structure, keyboard-navigable menus and forms, sufficient color contrast, descriptive alt text on images, and captions/transcripts for media — all foundational WCAG 2.1 techniques. Most importantly, the client now had a marketing tool that could be easily updated and used to track activity on the site for future planning.
In addition, the project earned JMS Marketing a 2026 APEX Award for Publication Excellence, standing out among roughly 1,000 entries specifically for this accessibility-first website work — validating the approach as one of the year’s standout examples of professional marketing communications.
