A Shropshire charity is celebrating its new ‘all singing, all dancing’ website, courtesy of a county web agency, after a hugely disruptive hack left it offline.
The team at Ascendancy in Newport stepped in to help The Georgia Williams Trust free of charge after hearing about the hack which resulted in the original site being lost and the important work of the charity hampered.
Ascendancy has created a more secure website aimed at preventing further hacks and made the site more user-friendly and easier to navigate, including the key area of grant and scholarship applications.
The Georgia Williams Trust was founded shortly after the tragic death of the 17-year-old in Wellington in 2013. The trust’s motto, Free Your Spirit, Join In, embodies the charity’s aim to enable young people to take part in the adventurous activities that Georgia enjoyed.
The charity has since awarded young people, schools and organisations a range of scholarships and funding to give youngsters the opportunity to follow their dreams - money which has been fundraised by people across the county.
Lynnette Williams, Georgia's mum, said: "We had a website for the charity which got hacked and we sadly couldn't retrieve it.
"The website is such an important asset for the charity as it is where people apply for the grants and where supporters find out about our fundraising events, and when the website was hacked, we suddenly no longer had that communication.
"We were kindly introduced to Ascendancy by one of our supporters, and the team there offered to create a website as part of their CSR programme, which was brilliant. This meant we didn't have to use any of our precious funds, and we now have an all singing, all dancing website at https://thegeorgiawilliamstrust.com/
"We would like to thank Chris and the team at Ascendancy for creating our amazing website for us. We look forward to our fundraisers and supporters using it and also our young people and families who can apply for grants through it too."
Jon Harrison, Ascendancy web designer, said: “We were honoured to support The Georgia Williams Trust by providing them with a fresh new website completely free of charge. The Trust does incredible work supporting young people, and given the significance of their mission, we couldn’t, and wouldn’t, say no to helping them.
“Working with Lynnette, Scarlett and Mary was an absolute pleasure, and we wanted to ensure they had a website tailored to their needs. The custom WordPress site we built is designed with their audience in mind, featuring a clean, user-friendly layout and easy navigation to key areas, one of the most important being their grant and scholarship applications.
“To streamline this process, we developed a multi-step application form that allows users to submit all necessary details efficiently, making it easier for the Trust to review and respond. We’re proud to have played a part in supporting such an important cause and look forward to seeing the impact this website will have for years to come.
“There is still some work to be done on the site's content, but being built inside of WordPress will allow the team to edit the site and make changes and additions to it over time. We look forward to continuing to maintain the website and supporting the charity going forward.”
