Sapphire Academy

About The Sapphire Employability and Wellbeing Academy

The Sapphire Employability and Wellbeing Academy is a London organisation with a long history behind a recent name. Founded in 2015 as Sapphire Ministries, it became the Sapphire Community Group in 2017 and took its current form in 2022, when the work narrowed onto what it does best: supporting people with employability, accredited training, housing, wellbeing and food support.

The Academy exists to help people access work and training, increasing independence and opportunity while reducing unemployment, poor mental health, crime and homelessness. It works with two audiences at once, people looking for work and employers looking for staff, and it has to be equally convincing to both.

The Challenge

Charities and community organisations carry a harder communication problem than most businesses. At least four audiences arrive at the same website: the people the organisation exists to help, employers and partners, funders assessing whether to back the work, and volunteers or trustees. Each wants something different, and most charity websites end up serving the funder and losing everybody else.

The Academy also had a history to carry. Three names in seven years is a sign of an organisation that has evolved with the need in front of it, but it can look like instability if the story is not told clearly. The website had to make the evolution read as focus rather than churn.

What We Built

We built the Academy a website organised around its audiences rather than its internal structure. The two primary routes, looking for work and looking to hire, are presented as a clear choice near the top of the page, so a visitor sorts themselves in one click instead of reading past material meant for somebody else.

Underneath that, the support the Academy provides is set out plainly: employability help, accredited training, wellbeing, housing and food support, in language that a person in difficulty can read without wading through sector jargon. The organisation's history is told properly, because for a funder or partner that continuity from 2015 is evidence, not background.

The site is mobile responsive and fast, which matters more here than in most sectors: people seeking support are frequently on a phone, often on limited data. SEO foundations went in as standard so the Academy can be found by people searching for employment support in London rather than only by those already referred. The team has full CMS access to add programmes, vacancies and news themselves.

The Result

The Academy now has a website that works for a person looking for a job and for a funder assessing the organisation, without either audience having to read past the other. The work is described in the organisation's own terms, and the history is presented as the asset it is.

It is also part of a longer relationship. Fruitcake Media has built and maintained websites across the Sapphire family of organisations, including Sapphire Space, the coworking hub. Being trusted with several sites for the same group over several years is the endorsement we value most.

Why It Worked

Community organisations are almost always working with less money and more urgency than the businesses they sit alongside. A website that costs thousands upfront is not a realistic option, and one that cannot be updated in house is worse than useless when a programme starts next week.

Our pay monthly model removes both problems: £39 a month with nothing upfront, hosting, SSL, daily backups, CMS access and real human support included, and changes made for you whenever you would rather not do them yourself. If you run a charity or community organisation, our pay monthly web design page sets out exactly what is included, or you can get in touch and tell us what you are trying to do.

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