Case Study for:
Associations / Organizations & Non-Profits Meeting Street Scholarship Fund – College Reports

 The Company

Meeting Street Schools was founded in 2008 by philanthropists Ben and Kelly Navarro. The company was created with the intention of providing a quality education for all students, regardless of socioeconomic status or geographic location. Today, Meeting Street Schools has four locations and serves over 2,000 students across South Carolina. As part of its mission, the school system aims to provide equal educational opportunities to students in underserved communities, which is why they have trusted Colophon to host, program, and maintain their websites that support their students’ education and academic & career goals.

The Scholarship fund was launched in 2021 to serve South Carolina high school students and provides up to $10,000 in funds for students going to South Carolina colleges. The fund has over 550 recipients with a mission to reach all 46 counties  and continues to partner with state public and private schools to expand scholarship offerings for their students.

 The Challenge

The primary goal of the website was to provide clear and accessible school demographic and cost information to high school students interested in applying for the scholarship. The challenge was to organize, incorporate, and maintain a large database of complex qualitative and quantitative statistics in a digestible format. Each college in South Carolina has different demographics, costs, and application requirements for prospective students, and the website had to present this information clearly across a number of pages. The database had to be streamlined to ensure maintenance and updates could be performed efficiently, as the demographics change every year. To achieve these goals and fulfill these requirements, the project required careful organization, testing and checking of data, and ongoing communication.

 The Process

The Meeting Street Scholarship Fund team partnered with the excellent Columbia, SC-based firm, truematter, to consolidate and organize all of this information concisely and effectively. The design employed user experience leading practices with a look and feel to match the existing website theme. With truematter designing each of the College Report pages, the Colophon New Media team was able to harness our vast experience with WordPress development and focus on programming the XHTML and dynamic WordPress modules and databases to power the website’s new features.

 The Solution

The Meeting Street, truematter, and Colophon teams collaborated to bring the design to life and organize all of the data from a range of South Carolina education websites to create cohesive and navigable College Reports pages. One of the standout features is the “Compare Colleges” tool, a custom programmed feature that allows students to visually compare various South Carolina colleges’ key statistics side-by-side, including tuition costs and six-year graduation rates.

Another impressive feature is the College Cost Calculator, which enables prospective students to estimate the total cost of attending college, factoring in both direct costs (like tuition) and indirect costs (like books and supplies). The calculator also shows how much of the yearly cost the Meeting Street Scholarship would cover, making the decision-making process clearer for students and their families. These kinds of intricate tools and custom website feature development are the many ways that Colophon stands apart as an agency, tackling difficult challenges to create lasting solutions.

Our team is proud to work with the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund organization, and creating tools to directly benefit our community in South Carolina and our next generation. Helping bring the College Reports to live was rewarding, and we’re honored to be a part of a great team supporting South Carolina’s future.