Key Insight
Client
Volunteering Queensland
Website
Volunteering Queensland is the state’s peak body for volunteering, supporting more than 300 member organisations and the volunteers they engage. As the connection point between the public, the volunteer-involving sector, and government, VQ needed a digital presence that did two things at once: position the organisation as the trusted authority on volunteering in Queensland, and serve as the operational front door to the volunteer opportunities its member organisations were running every day.
The Challenge
VQ’s existing web presence wasn’t keeping up with either ambition. The site was inflexible, fell short of contemporary accessibility standards, and lacked a clear information architecture for the three audiences trying to use it.
Individual Queenslanders looking to volunteer, member organisations managing their participation in the network, and the broader sector looking to VQ for advocacy, research, and policy leadership.
Behind the website sat a more important problem. VQ’s member organisations were posting volunteer roles into the back-office system, but those roles weren’t readily discoverable by the public the network exists to serve. The connection between “a member organisation has a role available” and “a Queenslander can find it and act on it” was indirect at best.
The Solution
IONYX took on the full UX redesign and development of the public-facing site, alongside the Salesforce integration that made the back-office data work for the public audience.
The integration is the technical centrepiece. Volunteer roles managed by VQ’s member organisations through the Salesforce-backed member portal are searchable directly from the public website, in real time, without manual republishing or syncing delays. A Queenslander looking to volunteer can search the live database of opportunities posted by every participating member organisation across the state, filter by location, type of work, or cause, and act on what they find. The member organisations stay in their familiar Salesforce workflow; the public gets a single, searchable view of the entire network’s roles.
Around that integration, IONYX rebuilt the site itself: a refreshed UX designed for VQ’s three distinct audiences, a more accessible build aligned to contemporary standards, a clearer information architecture, and a CMS structured so the VQ team could maintain and grow the site as their programs evolved.
The Results
Volunteering Queensland now operates a digital presence where the public website and the member-facing systems work as a single connected platform rather than two disconnected layers. Member organisations get state-wide visibility for the roles they post without leaving the systems they already use. Individual Queenslanders get a single, searchable front door to the entire network’s volunteer opportunities. VQ as the peak body gets a digital presence that reflects its position in the sector — accessible, well-structured, and operationally connected to the network it represents.
The integration approach scales with the network. As VQ’s member organisations grow, change, or post more opportunities, those changes flow through to the public experience automatically — the platform doesn’t need rebuilding to keep up.
