A digital home for a thriving community farm

Background

Aldermoor Community Farm is a thriving community hub based in Southampton. From therapeutic gardening sessions and school visits to community events and produce grown on site, the farm offers a place where people can connect with nature, learn new skills, and support their wellbeing.

Their existing site was difficult to update, didn’t reflect the personality of the farm, and struggled to communicate the breadth of what Aldermoor offers. For an organisation that depends on volunteers, visitors and community support, the website wasn’t helping them grow.

Aldermoor Community Farm is a project within the Alder Trust charity, who Rareloop have supported through our annual commitment to the charities and the local community.

The challenge

The existing site wasn’t reflecting the community that Aldermoor is today. The previous site was extremely outdated, difficult to manage, and didn’t clearly communicate the farm’s impact or how people could get involved. It also lacked strong imagery and personality, making it harder for new visitors to understand what makes the farm so special and everything they do.

Aldermoor Community Farm needed a new website that could:

Better represent the charity and its mission
Showcase the people and community behind the farm
Promote the farm shop and produce grown on the farm
Support and grow the farm’s community of volunteers, donors and supporters
Be easily updated by a small team with limited time

Our Approach

Getting to know the farm

To properly understand the organisation, Rareloop started with a discovery session where the team visited the farm in person, spending time exploring the site, speaking with volunteers, and learning from the team about how the farm operates day-to-day.

This helped uncover the different audiences the website needed to serve. Together, we developed several key user personas, including:

Volunteers
Donors
Funders
School groups
Farm shop customers

Mapping these audiences allowed us to design a clear information architecture that guides each visitor to the content that matters most to them.

From there, we created wireframes and a new site structure that prioritised the pages and actions most important to the charity, such as visiting the farm, volunteering, and supporting the farm through their Friends of the Farm scheme.

Since the launch, we've seen an increase in engagement and support from our community whilst also expanding our reach. The simple navigation, improved performance and thoughtful design are making a great impact on how we engage with customers, volunteers and funders! Rareloop have given us a website to be proud of that reflects our credibility and experience in our sector. We're genuinely thrilled with the outcome and would highly recommend Rareloop to any charity or business looking to elevate their digital presence. Their drive, professionalism, creativity and attention to detail sets them apart in every way.
Megan Pitt, Manager & Development Coordinator

Bringing the farm into the digital world

A key goal of the project was to create a site that felt authentic to Aldermoor. The farm already has a logo that was well loved and recognised within the community, so we optimised it for digital use and used it as the foundation of the wider visual identity. Drawing on the logo’s character and the atmosphere of the farm itself, we developed a set of brand elements that brought the same feel and personality into the website. These included:

Organic green tones reflecting the natural setting
Selected a typeface with a rural and hand crafted style, to reflect the physical and hands-on spirit of the farm
A more flexible, digital-friendly version of the existing logo
Custom footer design, inspired by the existing branding
Custom page components that allow imagery and storytelling to shine

The Aldermoor team were able to provide a rich library of photography capturing volunteers, visitors and everyday life on the farm. Featuring this imagery throughout the site helps visitors quickly connect with the people behind the organisation, creating a website that feels warm, welcoming and unmistakably Aldermoor.

A WordPress site the team can easily manage

With a small staff team, it was essential that the new site was easy to maintain. Rareloop built the site using WordPress, with our custom page builder, giving the team a modern editing experience that allows them to update content without needing technical expertise.

Instead of the rigid, bullet-point editing approach of the previous site, the new system uses flexible content blocks that make it simple to:

Update volunteers and donors on community funded project and accomplishments
Add imagery and stories from the farm
Promote products and update seasonal stock featured in the farm shop
Share updates with the community

We also introduced Gravity Forms, enabling the team to easily manage contact enquiries without needing any custom development. The result is a platform that empowers the team to keep the website fresh and relevant, while saving valuable time.

The Result

The new Aldermoor Community Farm website represents a significant step forward. Where the previous site struggled to communicate the charity’s work, the new platform clearly tells the story of the farm and the people behind it.

Since launch, the new website has already begun to drive stronger engagement. The announcement of the new site generated over 4,000 social media impressions, compared to Aldermoor’s usual 1,000, alongside a 4x increase in click-throughs on launch day. This early response highlights increased engagement from the community and a stronger connection between Aldermoor’s digital presence and its audience.

Visitors can now easily:

Learn about the farm’s mission and community impact
See how to donate to the farm
Discover volunteering opportunities
Visit the farm shop and refill store
Become Friends of the Farm
Stay connected through social media and events

Most importantly, the website now reflects the warmth, personality and community spirit that make Aldermoor Community Farm such a special place.