The Sentencing Project
Clarifying complex data to advance humane justice
When a user arrives at your site already on board with your mission, the job isn’t persuasion. It’s activation.
The Sentencing Project advocates for effective and humane responses to crime and has spent decades building one of the most credible bodies of research on mass incarceration in the country. We partnered with them to build a new website that could make complex data accessible, turn audience emotion into sustained action, and advance a credible case for systemic change.
What we did
- Brand strategy
- Content strategy
- Digital strategy
- Information architecture
- UX
- Visual design
- Website design
- Website development
1k
total users in year one post-launch
1%
engagement rate
1%
sessions driven by organic search
The focus
The Sentencing Project had the research, the credibility, the stories, and an audience that cared. They needed a digital experience that made the complex data accessible and converted people already moved by their work into lasting supporters.
Our strategy
We started by thinking about the visitor who already believed in The Sentencing Project’s mission. What did they need to see on the website to convince them to take action? Every decision followed from there.
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Converting emotion into action. The Sentencing Project had an audience that cared deeply. The previous site wasn't doing enough to meet that energy with clear next steps. We surfaced donation opportunities throughout the experience, added a persistent donation prompt, and connected content to relevant calls to action. We also implemented a new “Ways to Give" section that lays out the full range of options for how a user can contribute.
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Creating a resource library that holds up over time. Publications drive more traffic to The Sentencing Project’s site than anything else. We built a taxonomy-based resource library to make that content easier to find and navigate. Knowing that some materials are older but still needed for historical context, we added callouts pointing visitors to more recent versions, so audiences can move between past and present to build a fuller picture.
The results
In year one post-launch, the site reached 945,000 total users, with 60.7% of sessions driven by organic search. The 51.4% engagement rate signals that visitors aren't just arriving; they're staying and doing something with what they find. The W3 Awards took notice of the work, recognizing the site with a gold award for activism websites. Most importantly, our work helped make the case for humane justice easier to engage with and harder to ignore so that The Sentencing Project can reach the advocates, donors, and policymakers who are integral to this fight.
Reading Is Fundamental
