Organization Bio

The goal of the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness (WVCEH) is simple and clear: To end homelessness in the state of West Virginia. Founded in 2010, the agency finds itself addressing “a big misunderstanding that we do charity work,” explains Zach Brown, WVCEH’s executive director. “But really, our goal is to end homelessness by essentially being a housing-focused, impact machine.” This is how Zach summarizes the passion and commitment of the WVCEH staff, a group of people who work tirelessly to positively impact and eventually solve the homeless problem throughout West Virginia. Understanding the value of partnership, the WVCEH connects service providers, state agencies, businesses and concerned people to work at finding real and lasting solutions to the problem of homelessness.

A Great Encounter

“I think we met Jamie and Bricks Without Straw through a search of West Virginia-based website developers,” recalls Zach. Impressed with Jamie’s portfolio, WVCEH reached out to him asking for much-needed help. Jamie’s response was to request a face-to-face meeting with the WVCEH staff so that he could learn what the organization did, how they worked, and what website services they needed. “That was impressive – that he cared enough to meet with us on more than one occasion,” Zach notes. “He didn’t just jam us into a hole with the other businesses he works with.”

A Careful Work Style

Zach is equally impressed with Jamie’s work style. In his face-to-face meetings with WVCEH staff, Jamie gathered all the detailed information he needed to essentially rebuild their website. In Zach’s words, “Jamie did a full website overhaul, not actually from scratch, but he made it more attractive, user friendly, and accessible – he kind of reworked the whole thing.”

Once Jamie completed his work, he met again with staff to get their feedback on its proposed functionality and any additional changes they wanted to see. He involved the staff with even the smallest details.  Zach comments, “We’re a very diverse staff, some of us are very creative, some are very Type A, and Jamie showed a lot of patience with designing and implementing the website.” Simply put, Jamie’s work style that relies on face-to-face input from those who regularly use the website is a style that has worked well for the WVCEH staff.

Becoming More Dynamic

Jamie’s rebuilding of the WVCEH website transformed it from being a simple platform on which information remained unchanged for long periods of time, to one where new information regularly flows. Perhaps most notably was his building blog capabilities and social media links into the website. According to Zach, “Our blogging platform and links to social media allow us to concisely explain to the world who we are and WHY we do the work that we do.” The WVCEH now receives a lot of compliments from the public on their website. The agency also has a central place for people to make donations, a process which has been simplified through Jamie’s rebuild.

Their more dynamic website also means that the WVCEH staff can now operate more efficiently. For example, their website now gives them access to training online. This single change allows staff to spend more time doing their work and less time attending in-person trainings.

The Best Part

Jamie and his team at Bricks Without Straw continue to maintain the WVCEH website. What does Zach appreciate most about Jamie’s work? “He puts his effort on the important stuff: clean, simple, high-definition, with the ability to transfer across different platforms, like computer, phone, and tablet – and he does everything in a very patient way.”

Bricks Without Straw is a digital agency and design agency based in South Charleston, WV United States and Ota, Tokyo, Japan.

We offer a range of web design services including: web development, e-commerce services and email marketing. We also offer a range of graphic design services including logo design and exhibition stands.

We love working with clients of all sizes in a range of industry sectors, creating and implementing inspiring and hard working concepts and campaigns for business-business and business-consumer clients.

Valicia Leary

Bricks Without Straw has continued to exceed our expectations with their design work, support and attention to detail. We would highly recommend their services. They have a wonderful team and we enjoy our working relationship with them.

Carol Fulks

Bricks Without Straw has continued to exceed our expectations with their design work, support and attention to detail. We would highly recommend their services. They have a wonderful team and we enjoy our working relationship with them.

Patti Hamliton

Bricks Without Straw is bringing our association into the 21st Century! He brings us ideas and innovation for our web site and other tools of technology that help us enhance our image and our message.

Rebecca McPhail

Bricks Without Straw has continued to exceed our expectations with their design work, support and attention to detail. We would highly recommend their services. They have a wonderful team and we enjoy our working relationship with them.

Bill Raney

Jamie is one of the most committed and energetic professionals we have ever worked with over the years. He seems to work all the time with full 24-7 accessibility and immediate response. Bricks Without Straw has raised our collective confidence for maximizing opportunities in today’s world. We simply could not have done it without them.

Jan Vineyard

The demands and responsibilities to our members mandate that the online presence of our associations and our internet capabilities are reliable and seamless. Add creativity to that mix and one gets the complete package with Jamie Summers-Brown and his staff at Bricks without Straw.