Tzu Chi Foundation’s New Website

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—January 12, 2015—ANN ARBOR, MI—Tzu Chi Foundation recently launched a powerful new website at www.tzuchi.us to help educate visitors about the Foundation’s mission and assist in the solicitation of donations.

The shared goal of Tzu Chi volunteers is to cultivate sincerity, integrity, faith, and honesty within while exercising kindness, compassion, joy, and selflessness to humanity through concrete actions. Among Tzu Chi’s primary missions are charity, international relief, education, medicine and humanity, and recycling.

While Tzu Chi is the largest charity organization in the Chinese-speaking community worldwide, the Foundation has been looking for a way to engage United States donors in a meaningful way. Tzu Chi came to Logic Solutions to develop a website that would help convey the organization’s belief that small amounts of money can turn into great love and have tremendous effect on those who are suffering.

“The new mobile-friendly website will be a valuable resource to invite people to explore Tzu Chi’s services,�?says Dr. Han Kuei Huang, CEO of Tzu Chi Foundation. “Logic Solutions’ innovative work utilized digital technology to tell the inspiring stories of the diverse communities that we have served.�?/p>

Logic developed the new website within three months. Central to Tzu Chi’s powerful, modern design is a simple donation system. Visitors can make donations of any amount through PayPal, by credit card, or by check. The site features beautiful imagery, human stories, and videos. Additionally, the site has responsive web design and uses vertical sliding sections and parallax to enhance user experience. An intuitive content management system allowed Tzu Chi’s non-technical staff to easily update and make edits.

“We are proud to work with Tzu Chi, and this project was a labor of love. Our success was rooted in collaboration,�?says Keith Shen, Logic Solution’s Director of Offshore Development and Project Manager. “Tzu Chi US provided us with a vision that worked well with technology. And that’s exactly the strength of Logic Solutions: we work with our customers to realize their vision in technical action.�?/p>

Tzu Chi US is celebrating its 26th anniversary this year.

About Tzu Chi
Established in 1966 by Dharma Master Chen Yen in Hualien, Taiwan, Tzu Chi Foundation is an international non-profit humanitarian organization with four major missions: charity, medicine, education, and humanistic culture. The foundation also engages in international disaster relief, bone marrow donation, community volunteerism, and environmental protection. Today, the international non-profit organization has offices and chapters in all five major continents and provides aid to more than 69 nations worldwide. “Tzu Chi�?means “compassion and relief.�?Find out more at www.tzuchi.us

About Logic Solutions
Logic Solutions is an international, privately held development firm headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. With a team of 200 experts in six offices worldwide, Logic provides custom software, websites, eCommerce solutions, and mobile application development. Visit www.logicsolutions.com for more information.

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I was asked to meet with the CEO of Tzu Chi Foundation USA a few months ago for a potential enhancement of the foundation’s U.S. website. While I had heard of the foundation through my relatives and colleagues, this was the first time I visited. I was nervous that I was going to a religious place to get an earful of religious doctrine.

I was so wrong. The foundation is amazingly inclusive. They spoke passionately about their mission and their needs for technology improvement.

All of Tzu Chi’s administrative staff are well educated; most hold PhDs or MDs, and though the organization was founded on Buddhist principles, it welcomes people of all faiths. Han, the CEO, has a PhD in biology. There is a retired MD from the Buckeye state of Ohio that is Christian. As a non-profit organization, they have quite a sophisticated system mostly supported by volunteers.

As a result of my visit, Logic helped Tzu Chi Foundation launch the U.S. website (//www.tzuchi.us/) that contains many fascinating stories. Even if we hadn’t been involved, I would still have encouraged everyone to visit this site because the humanitarian effort experiences you will read there are remarkable.

Tzu Chi Foundation’s new website

The other project that we hope to help develop in the near future is Tzu Chi’s eBamboo app for mobile devices. Founder Dharma Master Cheng Yen already had this concept of micro-giving (micro financing) in 1966. The idea of the bamboo bank for Tzu Chi Foundation started out when Dharma Master Cheng Yen started a charity fund by encouraging her followers�?0 housewives—to drop just a couple cents of their grocery money into the bamboo bank each day before going to the market. The message was simple: when pooled together, even a little bit of change makes a big difference, and a daily good deed is a powerful way to cultivate oneself.

This mirrors my experience growing up in Taiwan. My grandmother would buy us a bamboo bank every year. A bamboo bank is a section of a bamboo with a coin slot in it where one can put change. When the Chinese New Year came, we would chop open the bamboo bank and get our money out to spend on fireworks, snacks, etc.

In the early days while the disciples of Dharma Master Chen Yen barely had enough to eat, they still set aside a percentage of their rice before they cooked it. The saved rice was used for relief efforts to give to the most needed later. Giving is no longer the privilege of the very wealthy; the spirit of giving can be embodied by everyone.

Jimmy Hsiao visiting Tzu Chi in Taiwan

While at Tzu Chi’s U.S. headquarters, I learned that there is an entrepreneur camp to better understand Tzu Chi in Taiwan. The camp experience was unforgettable. On the last day, I had the good fortune to be interviewed by the local TV station about my experiences. I said that many of the attendees who were business people running for-profit organizations, and as head of a for-profit company myself, used to think that a company needed to achieve greater financial results, and subsequently greater social responsibility, in order to be able to give back more. Was I wrong? Many of the Tzu Chi volunteers are giving whatever they could by setting aside as little as a few cents a day into the bamboo bank. As a company, we need to think of “giving�?from day one. We want to help Tzu Chi’s bamboo bank enter the digital age with an eBamboo app.

My next stop after Taiwan was Shanghai. Riding on the high spirit of giving, I was happy to give up my seat at the subway train for the elderly. I dropped 10 RMB into a beggar’s bucket when he asked. I took my son Andy to the eco-center of Tzu Chi Shanghai to help sort some of the recycle materials.

Then back in the US, on the Black Friday after Thanksgiving, I was so happy to see Cherry Republic (a Michigan company) advertise “Philanthropy Friday�?

Philanthropy Friday at Cherry Republic

Drop in to any Cherry Republic store today for a fistful of samples and to nominate your favorite charity. Each store will randomly select one of the charities nominated for a $500 donation. Call it Philanthropy Friday!

And then there was “Giving Tuesday�?/a> which made another day of the week very meaningful.

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You might be asking yourself “where do I even start?�?We sat down together and came up with a list of 7 things you should consider when looking for a suitable WordPress theme to help you narrow the field of options into something very manageable.

1. Functionality & Features
Knowing what you want your website to be is extremely important in selecting a WordPress theme.  A beautiful photo theme is worthless if you’re trying to launch a news site.  Similarly, you’re probably going to need a catalog and shopping cart if you have products to sell.

What is the purpose of your website?  Are you trying to find a theme for something corporate? Maybe you have products to sell and are looking for an eCommerce design. Do you write and post news articles?  Are you trying to showcase your artistic portfolio with an art gallery?

Source: Elegant Themes

There are many online theme marketplaces like WPHub, WPEden, and Mojo Themes that organize their themes into categories, such as theme types, color palettes, features (e.g. built-in SEOs, responsive design, drop-down menus), layout, and prices.  These categories help in narrowing down the selection pool to just themes that, functionally, fit what you want your website to be.

Additionally, be on the look out for features that you’d eventually like your website to have. Examples include:

• Sliding image gallery
• Pop-up text boxes
• Contact forms
• Collapsible or self-expanding content panels
• 5 columns instead of 3

If you’ve kept these features in mind, it’ll be a piece of cake to scale up your theme when you’re ready!

2. Responsive Design
A responsive web design means your website layout adjusts to the user’s screen size (like desktop, tablet, “phablet�? and phone), to provide the optimal viewing experience.

Source: Logic Solutions

An increasing number of people use their mobile devices to conveniently browse and shop online. If you think you will have or want to have a large customer or viewership base that will be looking at your site from somewhere other than a desktop computer, it is a good idea to find a theme that is responsive.

3. Customizability
Not all WordPress themes are equally customizable. In some you can alter the – layout, colors, font, short codes, etc.  and more. Some you cannot.

If you are a WordPress developer or are comfortable with content management systems (or know someone who is), we recommend that you find a theme that is fully customizable.  Not only does this give you a lot of control over what your website will ultimately look like, it also helps you stand out from other generic, default themes and sites.  And standing out and being unique is good.

Source: Theme Forest

If you are not as comfortable with WordPress, try finding a theme that is easier to customize.  If you’re feeling adventurous, try a theme that is fully customizable and use its comprehensive user guides and support forums to help you navigate the unfamiliar waters.

(Or we recommend going to an independent developer like Logic Solutions who has WordPress experts that can do the hard work for you!)

4. eCommerce Capability – Sell Things!
First off, what is eCommerce?  eCommerce is the trading of products or services online and draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.

So, got products you want to sell?  Find a WordPress theme that integrates with wooCommerce or WP eCommerce. Trust us, it’ll make your life so much easier than trying to squish an eCommerce plugin into a non-eCommerce theme.

Source: Templatic

Alternatively, try Magento!

5. Documentation & Support
Even the best WordPress experts can struggle with an unfamiliar theme if it’s not accompanied by good documentation, such as comprehensive user guides, support forums, clean codes, and the photoshop (PSD) files. Clean codes and PSD files can give you greater modification power so that you can further customize the design to suit your needs.

Good user guides and support forums are especially important when you’re trying to customize the theme for your own site.  Documentation should explain exactly how the theme can be used and point out common problems.  Check developers�?support forums to see how well they are responding to customers and if they provide polite, professional customer service.

With that in mind, try to not select a theme that either doesn’t have comprehensive user guides, support forums, or is no longer supported by the developer.  An unsupported theme will only cause nightmares and headaches.

6. Software/Theme Version
Check the theme’s version and make sure it is compatible with not only the most current WordPress system version, but also a couple of the past versions too.  It’s always helpful to know that the developer who created the theme is continuing to support it. With every WordPress update, you’ll want to make sure that your site (or parts of your site) doesn’t suddenly become non-functional because your theme hasn’t updated to keep up with the latest WordPress changes.

Source: ThemeForest

How can you tell if your theme is still supported?  Most obviously, if the developer lists theme version release dates, check those dates! Check the online theme marketplace – the most popular theme designs are most likely still supported by their developers.  Look up the theme on the developer’s own website – not just the online theme marketplace – and make sure that theme is still listed.  You can also look at the developers’ support forums to see how recently they have helped the last customers.

7. Browser Support

Source: Everythingbutthefood.net

Check to make sure the theme works with different browsers.  Some of your viewers might use Chrome or Internet Explorer (IE). Others might prefer Safari, Mozilla Firefox, or Chrome.  And still others are using Opera and even lesser-known browsers.  Not every browser will necessarily support all of your theme’s functions and features.  Just because CSS3 isn’t supported in the latest version of IE doesn’t mean that it isn’t in Firefox.

Basically, you don’t want to select a theme that looks fantastic in Chrome only to discover the layout is all wrong in IE.  But you don’t have to do the testing yourself!  Check to see if the theme developer has cross-checked the theme’s appearance, functionality, and code over multiple browsers.

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Jennifer Pan is a marketing coordinator and The New Recruit at Logic Solutions. If you want to get her attention, try talking to her about d20s, (board) games, sci-fi and geeky references, or cute animal videos…or all of them at once. Just don’t bring up her uncanny ability to roll natural 1s.

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