For the Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited, I designed and developed a custom WordPress website built to support a broader and more active set of organizational needs, including member engagement, community communication, donor solicitation and acknowledgment, conservation education, and ongoing chapter visibility. As one of the more content-rich Trout Unlimited websites I have worked on, the project required a platform that could balance storytelling, utility, outreach, and fundraising in a way that felt organized, welcoming, and easy to maintain. The chapter presents itself around conserving, protecting, and restoring northern New Mexico’s cold-water fisheries and watersheds, while also cultivating a strong local community of anglers, volunteers, donors, and conservation advocates.
The challenge was to create a site that could serve multiple audiences at once without becoming fragmented or overwhelming. It needed to help recruit and retain members, promote events and volunteer opportunities, recognize annual fund donors and valued partners, share conservation resources and fishing information, and provide a steady stream of chapter news and educational content. At the same time, the site needed to reflect the spirit of the organization itself: practical, community-driven, conservation-minded, and deeply connected to northern New Mexico. The navigation and content model span About, Fishing, Conservation, Community, Support, Blog, and Contact, showing how much range the platform needed to carry. Truchas is one of several New Mexico chapters that fall under the statewide Trout Unlimited New Mexico council, which I also designed and built.
I designed the site around a flexible custom WordPress build that could support a wide range of recurring and structured content. Core features included an events system for outings, volunteer projects, and chapter gatherings; a blog for chapter news, articles, and announcements; donor acknowledgment and partner visibility; and evergreen resources related to conservation, fishing, and community programs. The site also creates clear pathways for membership, volunteering, newsletter signup, and donations, helping the chapter turn passive interest into direct participation and support. Recent content on the site includes scholarship announcements, women’s fly fishing outreach, conservation activities, and upcoming restoration events, which reflects the breadth of communication the platform was designed to handle.
From a design and UX standpoint, the goal was to create something more robust than a simple nonprofit brochure site. The site needed to feel alive and useful, with room for timely updates, recurring engagement, and long-term content growth. The final result gave Truchas Chapter a stronger digital hub for member communication, public engagement, fundraising support, and conservation storytelling, all within a system the organization could continue to build on over time.
Patrick Iverson has been designing brands and building custom WordPress websites for nonprofits and conservation organizations across New Mexico since 2003. If your chapter, council, or mission-driven organization is ready to invest in a digital home that supports membership, fundraising, and storytelling at the same time, I would be glad to talk it through.
