The Penguins Goals Foundation: Supporting Youth Sports, Education, and Communities Across Northeastern Pennsylvania

The Penguins Goals Foundation is a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit and affiliate of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins that’s committed to helping young families access sports, education, and necessities. Whether it’s by hosting American Special Hockey Association tournaments, promoting literacy through their Robo’s Readers program, or stuffing a bus with donations of school and hygiene supplies, they offer community support in whatever ways they can.

Based in Wilkes-Barre but operating across Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA), much of their funding comes from local donors. Working with just a seven-person board of directors—plus the help of their beloved mascot, Tux—they’ve been able to use those donations to host a myriad of signature events and bring joy to countless NEPA households.

Removing barriers is what the Penguins Goals Foundation is all about. So, when they came to us explaining that their website was preventing users from accessing key organizational information, we knew we needed to build something more befitting of such a worthy cause.

The Penguins Goals Foundation Asked Coal Creative to Reinvigorate Their Website

As the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins’ Business Development Manager Mollie Boyd put it, the Penguins Goals Foundation website was “incredibly outdated and haphazardly put together.”

The site simply wasn’t working, and the foundation needed a reliable space to:

• Educate others about their mission and charitable actions
• Post updates about their ongoing events and activities
• Engage with their community—including a way for those in need to reach out to them and ask for support
• Collect donations

None of this was possible on their old page and, thus, Mollie feared the site “was not our best foot forward and did not represent the Penguins Goals Foundation accurately.”

Coal’s Web Developer and Technology Specialist, Travis Antoniello, echoed the same sentiment. He believed the half-finished site—which was indexed and discoverable via search engines—was detrimental to the organization’s image. He worried that users who found it may think the nonprofit was inactive or simply didn’t care about completing their web project.

Obviously, the Penguins Goals Foundation does care—they prove it every day through their charitable events and community outreach. Thus, Mollie envisioned the project as “a rebrand for our nonprofit to show not only Penguins fans, but all of NEPA, that we are a resource to them, and we want to help.”

With little salvageable content from their previous site—but a treasure trove of pictures, media, and information to work with—the project was slated to be a ground-up build. So, Coal got to work crafting a superb space for the Penguins Goals Foundation to establish its online presence.

How Coal Brought The Penguins Goals Foundation’s Website Vision to Life

After establishing clear objectives for what the Penguins Goals Foundation wanted their website to look like and accomplish, Travis and Coal’s Lead Web Developer and Lead Designer, Matt Simoncavage, got started on the project.

The first order of business (and part of every other step along the way) was fielding Mollie’s questions—of which she admits she had “maybe too many.” As Mollie notes, however, Travis (who was her primary point of contact on the project) was unwaveringly patient and expertly answered every one of her queries.

You see, Travis and Matt were tasked with building the site, but they weren’t solely responsible for filling its pages with content. The duo worked in collaboration with Mollie, who took on the responsibility of writing all the website’s textual elements. Thus, the team used their industry knowledge to guide Mollie “to make better choices in regard to SEO.”

As Mollie got to work authoring the site’s content, Matt and Travis tackled building the actual web pages. Aside from carefully catering the site’s layout, ensuring its functionality, and optimizing its navigability, Matt also had to decide what media to use to represent the team and organization. Fortunately, there was ample material to work with. As he recalls:

“The foundation gave us access to the WBS Penguin’s official Flickr account, with thousands of great photos of the team, events, and programs. Narrowing down the best of the best for use on the new website was truly a challenge.”

But it was a challenge he thoroughly enjoyed, and the media he ended up selecting for the site now perfectly suits its new theme, content, and aesthetics.

As Matt was sorting through Flickr, Travis got busy studying up on the organization’s affiliations, supporters, and community initiatives. After establishing his base of knowledge, he used it to customize the Penguins Goals Foundation’s layout and “make navigating the site a fun and engaging experience.”

When all was said and done, Travis, Matt, and Mollie combined their different elements to create a seamlessly functional, aesthetically-elevated website. Then came the final question from Mollie: How does this all work? As she puts it, “[Travis] really took the time to onboard me and get me well acquainted with the website so that it can evolve with our ever-changing foundation.”  

Regarding the process as a whole, Mollie had nothing but high praises to sing about Coal Creative, stating:

“Working with the Coal Creative team was an absolute delight. The entire process was seamless and enjoyable from start to finish. The team demonstrated a high level of professionalism and expertise. All communication was prompt and efficient.[…]. It was the sense of collaboration that really gave me confidence as someone who has never made a website before. It was evident that every member of the Coal Creative team is so passionate about what they do.”

Positive experiences are important and powerful, but they need to be backed up by an exceptional final product. So, the question remains: how did the Penguins Goals Foundation like its new website?

The Proof is in the Pages: How the Penguins Goals Foundation’s New Website Bolstered its Digital Presence

Before Coal finished the Penguins Goals Foundation’s new website, Mollie believed “the programs we did were not well represented online. Our stakeholders couldn’t have confidence in their donation because they didn’t know the impact of their dollars.”

When the site went live, however, it “transformed the way the Penguins Goals Foundation is perceived by [its] fans.” As Mollie describes it:

“Now when fans ask questions about the foundation, not only can we verbally share our favorite programs, but we can give them the visual aid. This is the first season people have come up to me to talk about our programs. People are asking me how they can help and how they can donate, all thanks to the new website showcasing our mission in an engaging way.”

In essence, the foundation now has the tangible digital presence it had envisioned before creating its website. The project modernized how the organization shares its news and activities, and the site provides “an online portfolio to showcase and platform all the work that the foundation does.”

The site’s not only a functional space, however—it’s likewise a uniquely beautiful platform that reflects the vision and aesthetic of the foundation. Mollie was beyond thrilled with the site’s final design, stating:

“The Coal Creative team captured the essence of our brand with the website without sacrificing any functionality. The website not only met but exceeded our expectations with the attention to detail and creative flair exercised by the minds at Coal Creative.”

Balancing aesthetics with purpose and functionality is always at the heart of Coal Creative’s builds. When crafting a site, we seek to incorporate unique, bespoke elements that beautify the overall design and distinguish the brand.

When working on the Penguins Goals Foundation’s site, Coal was able to utilize the organization’s wealth of brand assets to dream up “neat design concepts that were fun to develop, like the Penguins logo being a part of the page headers.” If you browse the site, you’ll also notice other unique graphics sprinkled throughout its pages that both enhance its aesthetic design and reflect the foundation’s emphasis on sports, charity, and community. 

Overall, Mollie is “in love with the website [as] it fully embodies everything the Penguins Goals Foundation is!” Coal Creative is also proud of our work on this particular project—not just for the success of the final product, but likewise for the amazing cause we were able to support along the way.

Fabulous, Functional Websites Are A Necessity for Modern Businesses—So Build Yours with Coal Creative

If your current website is like the Penguins Goals Foundation’s original page—half-finished, yet indexed and discoverable via search engines—you may have a big problem on your hands. 97% of internet users utilize search engines to find local businesses [1]. If what they find, however, is a broken, bland, or badly designed site, they’ll think twice about purchasing your goods or patronizing your services.

Nearly 30% of small businesses have an even bigger problem—they have no website whatsoever [2]. These businesses are missing out on a huge chunk of the modern market by passing on a digital presence and, as more of the world moves online, they risk becoming obsolete and unprofitable.

Whether your website is non-existent, out of whack, outdated, or simply in need of a minor tune-up, partner with Coal Creative to expedite and optimize your online presence.  As our continual collaborator and new friend Mollie puts it: “If I had to make 100 new websites, I would choose Coal Creative every single time.”

Just like we did with the Penguins Goals Foundation, we’ll support you and your organization every step of the way from ideation to creation and maintenance. Request a proposal to join the hundreds of other happy clients who have perfected their websites with help from Coal.

Sources: 

[1] “Does My Business Need a Website? 12 Reasons Why & 5 Reasons Why Not.” HubSpot. August 26, 2022. https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/38/five-legitimate-reasons-your-business-doesn-t-need-a-website.aspx. Accessed March 9, 2024.

[2] “20+ ESSENTIAL SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE STATISTICS [2023]: HOW MANY BUSINESSES HAVE A WEBSITE.” Zippia. March 28, 2023. https://www.zippia.com/advice/small-business-website-statistics/. Accessed March 9, 2024.