September 21, 2026
Website Redesign Proposal
Submitted To:
The Masterwork Music and Art Foundation
Todd Whitley, Executive Director
tmwusa@gmail.com
Submitted By:
Executive Summary
The challenge, as we read it
Masterwork Foundation's current site, built on Wix, no longer matches the scale of what the Foundation runs today: the Premier Award, Community Arts Awards, Emerging Artist Award, and the A Life in the Arts interview series. The Foundation needs a site that is genuinely easy to maintain, not just modern. Specifically, the RFP asks for a mobile-responsive rebuild with a non-technical content management workflow, a flexible homepage feature area that can highlight multiple initiatives at once, and navigation that gives A Life in the Arts real top-level visibility. It also calls for a secured, password-protected Board portal linking to internal Google Drive materials, lightbox pop-ups and banners for time-sensitive announcements, and a design system built around a four-color hierarchy tied to the Foundation's four arts disciplines, one that can support a future rebrand without another full rebuild.
Our recommendation
Visitor-friendly oriented homepage
To ensure visitors remain on a site, they must receive time-relevant/current feature content in a hierarchical fashion on the homerpage. Currently, https://www.masterworkarts.org/ uses a carousel for feature content with three additional links (newsletter subscription, Donations, and an artist profile). Carousels are not recommended for top-level feature content due to their contribution to causing visitors to immediately leave sites (bounce) before exploring additional content.* Rise X Shine recommends expanding the content on the homepage giving visitors a better understanding of activities within the foundation by adding visually engaging teaser content. Allow the visitors to scroll, an accepted practice in modern web behaviors, to access teaser content. (Wireframe included below)
CMS Recommendation
Framer. Framer is a no-code visual editor with built-in CMS collections, giving your staff a straightforward way to publish news and update pages without a developer. It eliminates the hosting, security patching, and plugin-maintenance overhead that comes with a traditional CMS like WordPress or Wix; Framer handles infrastructure, SSL, and CDN delivery as part of its managed hosting.
Native CMS collection for News/Blog, replacing your current Blogger presence, with existing posts migrated into the new structure rather than copy-pasted as-is. Use your social media platforms and email to promote blogs/articles. This helps drive traffic to the site and improves SEO.
Framer's native password-protected page setting is a direct fit for the Board access page linking out to your internal Google Drive materials, no plugin required.
Site-wide announcement banner and event/offer lightbox pop-ups, built as reusable, staff-editable Framer components so your team can swap content without touching code once launched.
Native YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook embeds for your social and video content.
Mailchimp-connected forms via Framer's form component, replacing your legacy Wix email capture.
Aplos forms will be embedded via the platform’s hosted widget/embed code on a dedicated Give page, keeping PCI compliance and payment processing with Aplos, similar to your current setup.
We welcome the opportunity to talk through your priorities in more detail.
Demetrius Goosbey II
Chief Creative Officer, Founder
Rise X Shine
*Pernice, Kara, "Carousel Usability: Designing an Effective UI for Websites with Content Overload" NN Group, September 14, 2013, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/designing-effective-carousels/. Accessed September 14, 2026.
Agency Overview
Rise X Shine (RXS) is a boutique creative agency founded and led by Demetrius Goosbey II, serving mission-driven organizations with brand strategy, UX/UI, and content work. Demetrius previously led Mathematica's in-house design and experience group and directed digital engagement platforms at LiveHealthier, and brings over 20 years of experience in human-centered digital and brand strategy and content governance. On this engagement, Demetrius is the sole point of contact and resource developing the design and build work. Demetrius is a graduate of the Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts — with a focus in music theater, drama, and visual art.
Process
Discovery & Strategy
Business Goals & Brand Strategy: Translating your objectives (family trust, provider engagement, donor confidence, policymaker clarity) into a strategy that defines what the site must achieve.
Platform & Content Audit: Assess existing digital platforms and content to understand the current portfolio and use cases
User Research: Understanding how families, policymakers, donors, partners, and providers actually think, feel, and behave, grounding content decisions in evidence instead of assumption.
User Personas: Profiles of your priority audiences, used to keep content, navigation, and tone relevant to each one.
User Flows: Mapping the path each audience follows to find a resource, apply, donate, or contact your team.
Functional Requirements: The required features and sections and align with user behaviors for accessible and efficient site experience.
Information Architecture: Organizing pages, menus, and content into a structure that reduces friction, including the required features.
Design & Execution
Wireframes: Page blueprints that set content priority and layout before visual design begins.
Content Creation: Writing page copy that carries the business goals, brand strategy, and research findings into real language for each audience, so every page reads as clear, strengths-based, and true to how families, providers, donors, and policymakers actually think and search for what they need.
Prototypes: A clickable version of the site your team can test and react to before development starts.
Usability Testing: Watching real users complete tasks on the prototype to catch friction points early.
Accessibility & Usability Optimization: Applying accessibility standards so the site works for users of all abilities.
Launch & Continuous Improvement: Launch, then ongoing testing and refinement based on analytics and user feedback.
Related Work
Dwight Davis for DC Council, At-Large
Full campaign rebrand and website rebuild, including a custom identity system (navy, gold, custom wordmark), a rebuilt campaign site, and a coordinated social media asset suite. Campaign materials drove a 35% email open rate, reached an estimated 41,500 residents via TV, and achieved a 10.25% social engagement rate.
Mathematica, Inc.
As an in-house director of design and experience, Demetrius led a full brand and creative infrastructure buildout for a policy research institution, including a unified brand management platform, UI component kit and brand guidelines, external and intranet sites, and a creative queue system (built on ServiceNow) with weekly traffic reporting.
LiveHealthier/Envolve PeopleCare
As the in-house director of creative content and engagement, Demetrius led branding and design system built for up to 21 health challenges across 100+ clients, including a template-based design system for the app and marketing materials, a mobile email marketing product line, and 508-compliant UI refinements.
References
Scope of Work
Design
Homepage hero will highlight feature content with one key and others as subfeatures. This approach allows the Foundation to highlight all feature content (Premier Award, Community Arts Awards, Emerging Artist Award, A Life in the Arts) in an hierarchical fashion without increasing the risk of lost visitors.
Updated primary navigation, with A Life in the Arts elevated to a top-level destination rather than buried under a general programs menu.
A four-color hierarchy system, one accent color per arts discipline, applied consistently across navigation, tags, and program pages, structured so it can extend into a future four-color logo/rebrand without a site rebuild.
Design retains your current branding as-is; no logo or identity work is included in this scope.
Wireframe
The sketch below details a low-fidelity wireframe to the structure of the new website. All visual elements are for proposal purposes only. If selected, Rise X Shine will work with the Foundation to refine the approach (including mobile views.)
Board Portal Sign In
About
Life in the Arts
Awards & Grants
News
Contact
Donate
Main Feature Headline
SubHead
Learn More
Subfeature Headline
Learn More
Subfeature Headline
Learn More
Subfeature Headline
Learn More
More News
Life in the Arts
Music
Dance
Theater
Visual Art
Headline of music programming
Description of Foundation activites supporting music programs
XX
Music programs awarded
$XXX,XXX
Music grants
Learn More
Awards & Grants
Premier Awards
Description of Premier Award activities
Deadline: Month XX, XXXXX
APPLY
Community Arts Awards
Description of Premier Award activities
Deadline: Month XX, XXXXX
APPLY
Emerging Artists Awards
Description of Premier Award activities
Deadline: Month XX, XXXXX
APPLY
Support
Support arts programs and emerging artists
Description of donation programs
One-time
Monthly
$25
$50
$100
Other
Donate
News
In the Arts
Music
Dance
Theater
Visual Arts
Awards & Grants
Premier Awards
Community Arts Awards
Emerging artists Awards
Foundation
About
contact
Donate
Board Portal Sign-in
Build & Integration
Core pages built in Framer: Home, About, the four program/award pages, A Life in the Arts, News/Blog, Donate, Contact.
Aplos donation integration supporting major cards, Apple Pay/Google Pay, and Venmo, per your existing Aplos account configuration.
Mailchimp-connected forms across the site.
Password-protected Board portal page linking out to your internal Google Drive folder.
Site-wide announcement banner and event/offer lightbox pop-ups, editable by staff without my involvement once launched.
YouTube embeds.
Content & Launch
Structural guidance and a page-by-page content checklist so your staff's manual migration goes smoothly (per the RFP, content entry itself sits with Foundation staff).
One live training session for your two staff members on publishing pages and posts in Framer's CMS, plus managing the banner/pop-up components.
Launch support and a defined post-launch bug-fix window.
AI Usage
Team members at Rise X Shine use AI on a daily basis to clarity and efficiency in managing our day-to-day processes. Used mostly to assist with collecting, organizing, and summarizing information, we will always remain transparent on when AI is being used. We don’t use it to replace human contributions, but enhance our creative and strategic thinking.
Technical Approach
Item
CMS/Hosting
Recommendation
Framer, a no-code visual editor with a built-in CMS collection for News/Blog; non-technical staff can publish without developer support. Included with Framer's site plan (SSL, global CDN, uptime); no separate hosting vendor needed.
Security
Platform-level SSL and infrastructure security managed by Framer; no plugin-based attack surface to maintain, unlike a traditional Wix or WordPress install.
Donations
Aplos hosted widget/embed on a dedicated Give page, supporting cards, Apple Pay/Google Pay, and Venmo.
Email Marketing
Mailchimp-connected forms via Framer's native form component.
Blog Migration
Existing Blogger (masterworkarts.blogspot.com) content migrated into a Framer CMS collection.
Board Portal
Framer's native password-protected page, linking to your internal Google Drive.
Analytics/SEO
Framer's built-in on-page SEO tools (auto-generated sitemap, meta fields) plus Google Analytics setup.
Accessibility
WCAG 2.1 AA compliance built into the design and development process, not audited after the fact
Post-launch support
Includes a defined bug-fix window post-launch
Budget
Proposed as a fixed project fee rather than time & materials, so your board can budget with certainty. This excludes all platform, hosting, and third-party licensing fees (Framer site plan, Mailchimp, Aplos), per your RFP's instructions; those are billed directly to the Foundation by each provider.
Phase
Deliverable
Fee
Discovery & IA
Site map, page inventory, integration requirements confirmed with Aplos/Mailchimp credentials
$500
Design
Homepage and core template designs in Framer, four-color hierarchy system
$1,500
Build & Integration
Full Framer build, all third-party integrations, board portal, custom banner/pop-up components
$1,500
Migration Support, QA & Launch
Migration checklist, staff CMS training session, launch, bug-fix window
$500
Total (Fixed Fee)
$4,000
Estimated timeline: 7 weeks from contract execution, sized to comfortably clear your October 5 award date with room for board review.
Ongoing support terms: Post launch, up to eight hours per month for 3 months of pro bono hrs are included. Hours above the eight hours will be billed at $150/hr.
Masterwork Foundation's website highlights the importance of supporting the arts through a modern, human-centric web experience accessible for all — a focus that sits comfortably in the services of Rise X Shine. I welcome a follow-up conversation to walk through specifics.
Contact
Demetrius Goosbey II, Chief Creative Officer, Founder
202.321.6348
This proposal contains confidential and proprietary information belonging exclusively to Rise X Shine. No portion of this document may be reproduced, distributed, or disclosed to any third party without the express written permission of Rise X Shine.