01 Starting point
A diaconal organisation — a church-linked provider of social services — is not a single operation but a network. Nurseries, advice centres, care services, specialist units and volunteering each have their own audiences, their own contacts and their own content. People looking for help rarely have the time to work their way through a navigation that follows the organisation chart.
Then there is the editing side. Content typically arises locally in the individual facilities, not centrally in a marketing department. A system that only professionals can operate goes stale across the board — opening hours, contacts and services stop being correct at some point.
Accessibility is not optional here. Publicly funded organisations and those close to the public sector fall under the requirements of the German Accessibility Improvement Act (BFSG) and the WCAG. And the people who use social services are exactly those who depend on contrast, keyboard operation and screen reader support.
02 Solution
The site runs on TYPO3. The content structure is ordered along what users search for rather than along the organisational hierarchy: services, facilities and advice centres are separate content types that can be filtered and shown in several places without being maintained more than once.
For the editors, the backend is split by role. Individual areas are maintained where the content arises, without global settings being touched. Content elements are preconfigured, so design does not have to be decided again with every post.
Accessibility sits in the templates, not in an overlay bolted on afterwards: semantic HTML structure, a visible focus, keyboard operation throughout, contrast values to WCAG, and alt texts that the backend asks for. Hosting and operation stay with one team where required, on our own servers in Germany.
03 Result
The site works as an entry point for people looking for advice and at the same time as the organisation's own presentation. Anyone searching for a service reaches the responsible office and its contact details in a few steps, wherever in the organisation it happens to sit.
Editorially the system carries itself. New facilities and services are built from existing blocks, and accessibility survives, because it is anchored in the template and does not have to be re-established with every single post.