Case Studies

National Fatherhood Initiative

National Fatherhood Initiative® (NFI) is the nation's leading nonprofit working to increase father involvement. Through training, resources, and evidence-based programs, NFI equips human service organizations to better engage fathers and strengthen families across the U.S.

What We Did:
Growth Strategy
Design
Development
Magnetic Messaging

www.fatherhood.org_why-father-inclusion-matters

www.fatherhood.org_championing-fatherhood_strategies-to-support-dads-of-children-with-developmental-disabilities

www.fatherhood.org_solutions_programs-and-resources

www.fatherhood.org_championing-fatherhood

www.fatherhood.org_solutions_collaborative-services

Project Overview

NFI's mission is to build stronger families by engaging dads, but their website wasn’t pulling its weight. With years of outdated design and structure, a cluttered user experience, and no clear path for buyers, their HubSpot-hosted site was hard to manage and harder to scale.

With no in-house dev or IT team, NFI needed a partner who could not only handle the redesign but also bring strategic clarity and long-term flexibility.

That’s where Lean Labs came in.

Project Goals

Our mission with NFI's site was:

Modernize the Website – Replace the outdated design with a modern, user-friendly experience built for inbound marketing.
Clarify Messaging – Refocus the site around NFI’s most impactful offerings and communicate their value.
Simplify Navigation – Create a buyer journey to help diverse stakeholders—from correctional facilities to schools—find what they need fast.
Empower the Team – Build the site on a modular system the NFI team could easily manage and update on their own.

KPIs

Drive visitors to Product Pages: The streamlined navigation and website page layouts should be driving more visitors to our most important pages.

Exit & Bounce on Key Pages: All content our all the key website pages should be optimized, relevant, and able to move visitors to a logical next step.

Challenge

NFI's website overhaul had three specific challenges:

1. Their audience spans multiple sectors—including nonprofits, schools, correctional facilities, and military organizations—each with unique needs and levels of familiarity with fatherhood programming.

2. The existing website had become cluttered over the years, making it difficult for visitors to find the right resources.

3. The project was tied to a tight timeline and had to align with a broader strategic shift: narrowing their focus to the most impactful offerings while still communicating the full value of their work.

Solution

Lean Labs rebuilt NFI’s website from the ground up, starting with in-depth messaging and positioning interviews. We helped the team clarify their value prop, then translated it into a streamlined site structure and clean page layouts.

From there, we launched the site using a modular design approach, giving the NFI team the power to easily manage and scale the site on their own.

The result? A fast, modern website that communicates NFI’s value clearly, guides users to the right programs, and supports their mission like a full-time team member.

90-Day Results

Homepage Bounce & Exit Rates Improved by 10%: the new NFI homepage is doing a better job at soliciting clicks deeper into the website.
Core Web Vitals Improved on Desktop and Mobile: their desktop website grader score went from 70 to 77 and mobile increased from 41 to 64.
16% increase in traffic to key product page.
Sent 1,000+ more visitors to the online store.