Case Study
Foreign Policy Association
WPRiders rebuilt FPA’s outdated platform into a unified WordPress ecosystem with seamless membership, event, e-commerce, and content integration—eliminating inefficiencies, enhancing user experience, and supporting FPA’s mission of global dialogue through modern digital infrastructure.
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Case Study
Client Industry
Nonprofit
Annual Revenue
N/A
Project/Billing Type
Fixed
Client Website
Company Size
MSB
Project Timeline
6+ months
Overview
The Foreign Policy Association (FPA), a well-established nonprofit dedicated to educating Americans about international affairs, faced significant limitations with its outdated digital platform. Their legacy system created barriers for members accessing content and required extensive manual intervention for basic operations. The fragmented infrastructure couldn’t effectively integrate membership management with their expanding portfolio of events, publications, and educational resources.
WPRiders was engaged to completely rebuild their digital presence on WordPress. Our objective was clear: create a unified platform that seamlessly handles membership management, e-commerce functionality, event registration, and multimedia content delivery.
The goal wasn’t simply aesthetic improvement—it was developing a comprehensive digital ecosystem that would eliminate operational inefficiencies and enhance user engagement while supporting the FPA’s mission of promoting informed international dialogue.
Challenges
- Outdated infrastructure built on legacy systems
- Complicated membership logic
- Systemic e-commerce workflows tied to UltraCart
- Limited integration between community features and paid memberships
- Consolidating scattered content streams into a centralized user hub
Results & Benefits
- Achieved 90+ Google PageSpeed score with optimized architecture for superior performance
- Migrated FPA.org to WordPress with a scalable architecture designed for future growth
- Integrated membership tiers with smart access rules and content permissions
- Built a comprehensive event management system with automated workflows
- Developed custom WooCommerce integration with UltraCart API for flexible product management
- Created a custom donation module with Stripe payment processing
- Implemented automated dashboards, eliminating manual content, order, and permission management
- Modernized user experience with intuitive design and navigation for diverse audiences
- Prioritized data security and integrity throughout the entire platform
“The new website has significantly improved our internal workflows by consolidating key functions — including membership management, event registration, and bookstore operations — under one platform. Previously, these systems were either manually managed or maintained through custom-built tools that required developer support for even modest changes.
Now, with WordPress as our CMS, our team can manage content, update events, launch new initiatives, and process transactions without relying on custom code or external development. This has reduced turnaround time for updates, improved staff autonomy, and allowed us to focus more of our resources on mission-driven work rather than technical maintenance.
The intuitive backend, plugin ecosystem, and improved site architecture have made it easier to train new staff and delegate tasks across departments. Overall, the new platform has created a more nimble, responsive, and sustainable digital infrastructure for the organization.”– MacDara King, FPA.org
Our Approach
Our engagement began with comprehensive discovery and strategic planning, conducting in-depth audits of FPA’s existing tools, workflows, and complex requirements spanning digital and physical sales, regional events, and layered content permissions.
Understanding these diverse needs allowed us to design a modern, unified visual identity that consolidated fragmented design directions into a cohesive user experience optimized for FPA’s varied content and membership interactions.
The technical foundation required architecting granular membership access control using MemberPress with event-based and product-triggered categories, complemented by custom scripts that ensure precise historical content access based on activation dates.
Rather than disrupting FPA’s established sales workflows, we developed a seamless shop integration that maintained their UltraCart backend while implementing WooCommerce for enhanced front-end presentation, including custom pre-order logic and tax configurations.
To support FPA’s extensive public programming, we built comprehensive events and community systems using Event Espresso for ticketing and automated workflows, integrated with BuddyBoss for discussion groups and regional directories.
The final layer involved implementing robust content security and hosting infrastructure, with protected video content, membership-gated book chapters, and scalable architecture featuring Cloudflare, Redis, and optimized PHP workers to handle traffic spikes while maintaining optimal performance.
Gallery
Conclusions
FPA.org now operates as a powerful digital hub that truly serves the modern needs of this historically respected nonprofit organization. The transformation eliminated the operational bottlenecks that previously hindered staff productivity, while the unified platform seamlessly connects membership management, content access, event coordination, and ecommerce functionality. WPRiders delivered a comprehensive solution that balances technical sophistication with user-friendly administration, enabling FPA’s team to focus on their core mission of fostering informed international dialogue rather than wrestling with digital infrastructure limitations. The result is a scalable, secure platform that not only meets today’s requirements but positions the Foreign Policy Association for continued digital growth and enhanced community engagement.
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