Niles Township, IL Reaches More Residents Thanks to CivicPlus®

Niles Township, Illinois, is home to around 110,124 Prairie State residents. Surrounded by beautiful forests and ecologically diverse prairie fields, the area is known for some of the Country’s most beautiful wildflowers and nutrient-rich black soil. The renowned Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is a four-minute drive away in Skokie and provides a significant volume of visitors to Niles Township. The population is a melting pot of different cultures, with more than forty percent of its residents speaking English as a Second language (ESL).

Before CivicPlus

The Township’s administrators previously utilized WordPress for their website’s content management system (CMS) but were experiencing burnout from manually curating, updating, and managing their digital presence.

“It was difficult to keep up with everything when using WordPress,” shares Jennifer Steiner, Passport Facility Manager and Administrative Assistant to Niles Township. “It was all done manually and became too much in the end.

“Accessibility was nonexistent before moving to CivicPlus, ” adds Alex Rodriguez, Administrative Assistant to Niles Township. “We had no special digital Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance functionality at the time.”

The Niles Township community is home to a large Syrian population, and community outreach is a significant presence in the area.

“We have long recognized the importance of having a website for our community that provides important Township information in an easily readable and accessible way.”
–    Rick Krier, Administrator, Niles Township, IL

Why Niles Township Chose a CivicPlus Website

The community needed more digital accessibility and straightforward online content and website management. With vast choices of modules and functions, CivicPlus was the winning vendor for the Township’s new municipal website.

“The [CivicPlus Municipal Website] technology is much more intuitive, and everyone in the department has caught on quickly to the new software.”

– Alex Rodriguez, Administrative Assistant, Niles Township, IL

Steiner and Rodriguez admit the Township has room to grow in its ADA compliance and community awareness of the new website. They shared how good it was to know their CivicPlus partner could help the Township scale its municipal website needs when ready.

Here the community is big on lending a helping hand. The Niles Township Respite Center is helping unhoused residents by providing a safe place for rest, showering, washing clothes, and other essentials. Feeding and supporting the local population is very important, and the government and social workers spend time at the Respite Center and the local Niles Township Food Pantry.

The food pantry is a large portion of the community’s outreach efforts and partners with the Greater Chicago Food Depository. This fundamental part of Niles Township serves over 1,800 households a month. When the website was relaunched through CivicPlus, it became less time-consuming to update the residents about the food donations and when the center was closed for maintenance and cleaning.

Superior Support

Steiner and Rodriguez agreed on how seamless CivicPlus’ software training was.

“The training was straightforward and happened quickly time-wise,” says Steiner. “There was no issue with getting support, and our questions were always answered.”