Rock & Roll Institute

The Rock & Roll Institute and myself go back a few years to its beginnings. The Northern IL nonprofit organization provides a valuable, music education service to the region’s youth. Especially those who don’t fit into the traditional mold of amateur sports and recreation. R&RI is approaching its 20th year anniversary in 2024, which is quite an accomplishment in the tough Rockford region. I assisted them with their identity and launch many, many moons ago, so when the opportunity arose in mid-2023 to help lead a digital makeover to expand their community reach, I gratefully accepted the challenge from its team. The brand identity itself had been altered slightly since its origins. We decided to keep such intact to focus solely on planning, developing, and implementing a new site with registration/enrollment/member account CRM capabilities for segmenting seasonal camps within the community. An inaugural 2023 Winter Camp was the catalyst for a site redevelopment and launch alongside the migration of all web services to administrate. With the first phase of redevelopment complete and registrations flowing in to fill up the late December camp, attention was shifted to creating and implementing an online merchandise storefront. The E-commerce with print-and-ship-on-demand channel was successfully setup with merch designed and ready to sell for fulfillment during the week of camp. The entire project was pulled off without a hitch because R&RI trusted me to take the lead on setting them up for continued success, both online and in the community. Proud to be involved in helping out such a great cause for our community’s youth, and with influencing the importance of music and the arts.