USFS Anan Wildlife Observatory partner
A polished, production-grade nonprofit website for the educational and operations partner of the USFS Anan Wildlife Observatory — and the platform that helped Friends of Anan land a $300,000 grant from a major philanthropic funder.
$300,000
Grant secured after launch
Funded the observatory program for the season
< 6 wks
Built before bear season opened
Shopify
Full e-commerce + donations live on day one
8,342
Peak unique visitors in a single month
The story
The challenge
Friends of Anan needed a website that could carry a serious grant pitch. Their treasury director Brian Reggiani was paying out of pocket and couldn't afford a slow, generic build. They needed e-commerce, donation processing, and the site live before bear season started.
What we built
Friends of Anan operates the bear observatory in collaboration with the US Forest Service, Alaska T3, and explorer.org — handling on-site installation of the live cameras, solar power, and Starlink that feed explorer.org's bear cams and YouTube channel. We built a site that anchors that whole story: a clean home for their educational mission, Shopify-powered merchandise, Stripe donations, embedded explorer.org and YouTube live feeds so visitors can watch the bears in real time, and a transparent governance + partnerships section that gives major funders confidence.
What happened
Launched on deadline. Shortly after, Friends of Anan secured a $300,000 grant from a major philanthropic funder — connected through their partnership with explorer.org — funding that will support multiple bear seasons, not just one. From a pre-launch baseline of zero, the site spiked to ~7,000 unique visitors in its first full month and 8,342 the month after — settling into a healthy 3,000–4,300 monthly average that continues to drive merchandise sales, donations, and visitor education year-round.
Traffic since launch
Built to convince funders, not just visitors
The site's most important sections aren't the flashy ones — they're the partnership and governance sections that show how Friends of Anan operates alongside the US Forest Service, Alaska T3, and explorer.org. Clear program impact, transparent operations, professional photography, and embedded live cameras from the observatory itself — exactly what major philanthropic funders look for before writing a six-figure check.
The site itself
What this involved
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