Cities Frontline Fellowship Migration
The rebuilt Cities Frontline Fellowship website gives frontline professionals and their families clearer paths to local gatherings, personal support, events, and trusted resources.
Cities Frontline Fellowship needed more than a new name and a visual refresh. Formerly known as Cities Cop Church, the organization had expanded its mission beyond law enforcement to serve firefighters, EMS professionals, corrections officers, dispatchers, emergency medical staff, and other frontline professionals throughout the Twin Cities metro area.
Its existing Squarespace website no longer reflected that broader audience. The content was brief, gathering information was difficult to find, and years of hidden, outdated, and overlapping pages made the website harder to manage.
Accordus created the new Cities Frontline Fellowship brand and assigned the website project to Desmond Haskell, who completed the work as an independent contractor for the agency. Desmond planned and built a new 25-page Squarespace 7.1 website while the former Cities Cop Church site remained live.
The project included information architecture, UX strategy, website design, content writing and editing, Squarespace development, event setup, support forms, accessibility improvements, SEO preparation, custom code, and coordination for the domain transition.
Project Overview
Client: Cities Frontline Fellowship
Former name: Cities Cop Church
Industry: Faith-based nonprofit and first-responder ministry
Platform: Squarespace 7.1
Project type: Rebrand implementation, website migration, and custom rebuild
Project timeline: August–October 2026
Pages created: Approximately 25
Website: citiesfrontline.org
The Challenge: Rebuilding the Website Around a Broader Mission
Cities Cop Church had grown beyond the audience described by its former name. The organization wanted its new identity to reflect who it had become and help it reach more first responders in the Twin Cities metro area.
The website now needed to speak to law enforcement officers as well as firefighters, EMS professionals, corrections officers, dispatchers, emergency-room staff, other frontline workers, and their families.
This change affected far more than the logo. The audience shift required a new content strategy, a broader vocabulary, and a clearer explanation of who the organization serves.
The former website also contained hidden pages, unused sections, outdated information, and several separate pages that addressed closely related needs. Moving everything into a new site without reviewing that structure would have carried the same problems into the rebuild.
Desmond began by determining what information still belonged on the website, what needed to be rewritten, and what could be combined. The resulting structure was built around the questions a first-time visitor would be most likely to ask:
Where and when can I attend a gathering?
Is this organization meant for someone in my profession?
Can my spouse or family attend?
What events are coming up?
Where can I ask for prayer or personal support?
What does the organization believe?
What should I expect during my first visit?
This visitor-focused approach became the basis for the new sitemap and content hierarchy.
Building a New Squarespace Site Without Interrupting the Existing One
Both the former and new websites were built on Squarespace 7.1, but this was not a simple redesign within the existing installation.
Desmond built the new website separately on a Squarespace trial while the Cities Cop Church site remained available to the public. This allowed the existing website, social-media links, email campaigns, blog links, and outreach materials to continue working throughout the project.
Once the new site was approved, it was moved onto its own Squarespace subscription and connected to the new citiesfrontline.org domain. The domain manager then pointed the former domain to the new website based on the redirect requirements Desmond provided.
This approach gave the team room to restructure and test the new website without disrupting the organization’s active communications.
Restructuring the Website Around Visitor Priorities
The revised navigation focused on seven primary destinations:
Gatherings
About
Get Support
Resources
Events
Contact
Give
Gathering information received greater priority throughout the website. Instead of making visitors search for meeting details, the homepage clearly introduces the North Metro and South Metro gatherings, including their schedules and locations.
The About section brings the organization’s story, mission, leadership, and statement of faith into a clearer structure. A dedicated What to Expect page answers practical questions about service length, clothing, family participation, arrival, parking, worship, teaching, and prayer.
These decisions made the website more useful for someone encountering Cities Frontline Fellowship for the first time while still supporting returning members looking for an event, resource, or support option.
Consolidating Six Support Pathways
Support information was one of the most fragmented areas of the former website. Prayer, baptism, pastoral care, mentoring, questions about following Jesus, and other personal needs were spread across separate pages and sections.
Desmond brought six support pathways into one Get Support experience:
Prayer
Baptism questions
Pastoral support and referrals
One-to-one mentoring
Learning more about following Jesus
Additional support requests
Each option received a clear description and a direct path to the appropriate form. The section also establishes appropriate limitations for crisis requests and provides outside resources when a need falls beyond the organization’s role.
This consolidation reduced navigation clutter and gave visitors one private, understandable place to begin asking for help.
Creating a More Useful Events System
The former website needed a better way to present gatherings and special events without mixing the two.
Recurring North Metro and South Metro gatherings were presented as permanent location and schedule information. Special programs, retreats, conferences, and other dated activities were built through Squarespace Events.
This distinction allows visitors to understand the difference between a recurring gathering and a registration-based event. It also gives special events their own stable URLs for sharing through email, social media, and partner outreach.
The Events setup gives Cities Frontline Fellowship a repeatable system the organization can continue using as new opportunities are announced.
Applying Accordus’s Brand Across Squarespace
Accordus created the Cities Frontline Fellowship brand identity, including its logo, colors, typography, and visual direction. Desmond was responsible for translating that established system into a working Squarespace website.
The new identity was applied across approximately 25 pages, including navigation, buttons, videos, content cards, forms, event layouts, mobile menus, and footer elements.
Custom CSS and code were used to extend Squarespace’s native styling and create a closer match to the approved brand. These additions included:
Branded dropdown-navigation treatments
Full-row hover states for dropdown links
Animated arrow treatments on buttons
Custom mobile-navigation typography
Bordered video-player styling
Consistent borders for list cards
Refined newsletter and form fields
Clearer required-field indicators
Smooth scrolling with reduced-motion support
An automatically updating copyright year
The added functionality remained focused on usability and consistency rather than decorative effects that could distract from the organization’s message.
Writing for Frontline Professionals and Their Families
The former website often communicated in short statements that assumed visitors already understood the organization.
The new content needed to provide more context without sounding formal or distant. Desmond wrote and edited website copy that explained the organization’s purpose, identified the people it serves, and answered common questions more directly.
Because the rebrand expanded the intended audience, terminology was reviewed carefully. References to police officers were retained where historically or contextually appropriate, while broader terms such as first responders, frontline professionals, spouses, and families were introduced throughout the website.
All new and revised copy went through client approval and quality review from the Team Lead.
Preparing the Website for Accessibility, Privacy, and Search
Accessibility and privacy were incorporated into the build instead of being treated as post-launch additions.
Desmond completed accessibility improvements across the website, including mobile adjustments, readable text sizing, heading organization, descriptive image metadata, form labeling, color and layout considerations, and reduced-motion support for visitors who have enabled that preference.
The site also received a revised privacy policy and cookie setup, both reviewed and approved by the client.
Search preparation included:
Page-specific SEO titles and descriptions
Descriptive URL slugs
Image filenames and alternative text
Internal linking between related pages
Search language connecting the former and new organization names
References to first responders and frontline professionals
A custom 404 page
Search controls for the 404 and form-confirmation pages
Event-image metadata
An llms.txt file
Redirect planning for the domain transition
The redirect plan was especially important because the organization had links in social posts, emails, blog content, marketing materials, and outreach campaigns using its former domain. Desmond documented the need to point the old domain toward the new site, and the domain manager handled the domain-level implementation.
Managing Reviews Across the Accordus Team
The Team Lead served as the liaison between Desmond and the client. She gathered assets and feedback, coordinated with graphic designers, QA staff, and the domain manager, and communicated client decisions throughout the project.
Desmond led recommendations concerning the Squarespace build, sitemap, page organization, UX, content consolidation, and platform-specific functionality. Recorded walkthroughs were used to present work and explain recommendations before the next group of pages was built.
The project moved through defined review stages:
Homepage direction and brand implementation
Core-page structure and gathering information
Remaining pages, support pathways, and events
Mobile adjustments and content review
Internal QA and client revisions
Launch preparation and post-launch review
This staged approach allowed major decisions to be approved before they were repeated across the full 25-page site.
The Finished Cities Frontline Fellowship Website
The new Cities Frontline Fellowship website launched on October 9, 2026, within the anticipated project schedule.
Because the site is new, there is not yet enough post-launch data to make claims about traffic, registrations, donations, or search rankings. The confirmed result is a completed website that addresses the structural and communication problems identified at the beginning of the project.
The finished site provides:
A website aligned with the Cities Frontline Fellowship identity
Clear language for a broader range of frontline professionals
Prominent gathering schedules and locations
A visitor-focused sitemap
Approximately 25 newly built pages
Six support options consolidated into one experience
A reusable Squarespace Events system
Expanded information for first-time visitors
Responsive layouts for desktop and mobile
Custom Squarespace styling and functionality
Accessibility and privacy improvements
Search metadata and migration preparation
A controlled transition from the former domain
This project was completed by Desmond Haskell as an independent contractor for Accordus. Accordus created the new brand identity and coordinated the broader client relationship, quality review, graphics support, and domain work.
See the finished website at citiesfrontline.org.
Planning a Squarespace Migration or Nonprofit Website Rebuild?
A successful website migration involves more than transferring pages. It requires decisions about what should remain, what needs to change, how visitors find information, and how existing links will continue working after launch.
Haskell Digital Services brings this experience in information architecture, content strategy, Squarespace development, custom code, SEO preparation, and complex website rebuilds to organizations planning their next website.
Tell us about your current website, the people it needs to serve, and what is changing. We’ll review the project and walk you through what comes next.
