The client
The Arkansas Zoological Foundation is the philanthropic partner of the Little Rock Zoo — a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, founded in 2003, that raises the private support behind the Zoo's habitats, animal care and conservation education programs. The Zoo itself has been an Arkansas fixture since 1924, is home to more than 400 animals across 200+ species on 33 acres, and is the only AZA-accredited zoo in the state. None of that comes through on a page that just says so in a paragraph of text.
The challenge
The Foundation's old website was a single static page: a logo, two short paragraphs of copy, a text link to a donation form, and a footer. No photography of the Zoo or its animals. No mention of what the Foundation was actually working on. No path from “I care about this” to “I just gave.” For an organization mid-way through the largest capital campaign in the Zoo's history — a $12 million entrance plaza, amphitheater and habitat overhaul — the website wasn't telling that story at all, let alone asking anyone to help fund it.
What we built
WebJIVE rebuilt the site from scratch as a fast, flat-file build with a clear job: turn a visitor's first ten seconds into a reason to give. The redesign includes:
- A donation-led homepage — real Zoo photography, a stat bar (1924 founding year, 400+ animals, 200+ species, 33 acres, #1 AZA-accredited zoo in Arkansas), and a “Donate Today” button above the fold instead of buried in a paragraph.
- A dedicated campaign page telling the story of the $12 million project now underway — broken ground June 2025, completing fall 2026 — and explaining plainly how bond funding and private donations each play their part, so a first-time visitor understands exactly what their gift pays for.
- A brand refresh built around the Foundation's 2025 rebrand (lime and navy, paired with self-hosted Archivo and Figtree type) applied consistently across every page instead of living only on a logo file.
- Every giving path made visible — one-time and recurring donations, memorial trees/bricks/benches, and planned/estate gifts — each with its own clear next step instead of a single generic donate link.
- Every existing URL preserved exactly (
/who-we-are/,/current-campaign/,/donate/, and the rest), so the redesign carries zero SEO risk at launch — nothing for search engines to re-learn, no lost equity from renamed pages.
The result
Side by side, the difference isn't subtle:
Before: a text-only page, one image, no call to action.
After: a donation-led homepage with imagery, real stats, and the campaign story front and center.
The new site went live on 1 September 2026 at arkzoofoundation.org, replacing the WordPress build in place. Every URL search engines had learned over the previous decade still resolves — the old sitemap held 42 indexed addresses against just nine real pages, and all 42 return a 200 on the new site.
The result, measured
Before retiring the old WordPress site we stood it back up privately — same server, same PHP, same database — and scored it with Google PageSpeed Insights, then ran the identical test against the live rebuild. Same four pages, same day, median of three runs each.
| Page (mobile) | Performance | Accessibility | SEO | Largest Contentful Paint |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home | 61 → 97 | 65 → 100 | 61 → 100 | 4.7s → 2.1s |
| Who We Are | 70 → 98 | 78 → 100 | 61 → 100 | 4.4s → 2.3s |
| Our Campaign | 66 → 96 | 65 → 100 | 54 → 100 | 5.0s → 2.2s |
| Donate | 68 → 95 | 66 → 100 | 54 → 100 | 4.4s → 2.5s |
On desktop, all four pages now score a straight 100 for Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices and SEO. Cumulative Layout Shift — the measure of how much a page jumps around while it loads — went from 0.19 on the old homepage to a flat 0.00.
In fairness to the old site: its desktop performance was already 93–98. It was fast on desktop for the same reason it was failing everywhere else — there was almost nothing on it. The movement that matters is in mobile speed, accessibility and SEO, and the new homepage achieves it while carrying twice the payload, because it now shows the Zoo's animals instead of a logo.
Accessibility was audited across all eleven pages at launch with zero outstanding issues, and the site ships with no database, no page builder and no plugins — so there is nothing to patch, and nothing between a visitor and the donate button.
Read the full breakdown
We measured the old WordPress site and the new build the same way, on the same day, and wrote up every number — including where the old site was already doing fine.
From a 2016 Homepage to a Perfect 100: Inside a Little Rock Website Rebuild →
PageSpeed figures captured 1 September 2026 via the Google PageSpeed Insights API, median of three runs per page and per strategy, scoring the canonical no-redirect URL. See the live site at arkzoofoundation.org.
About the Arkansas Zoological Foundation
The Arkansas Zoological Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 35-2241655) that raises private support for the Little Rock Zoo's habitats, animal care and conservation education programs. Learn more or donate at arkzoofoundation.org.