Overview

The Serbian Royal Foundation uses its website to present its activities, projects, initiatives, and updates, while also enabling visitors to support its work through online donations.

Although the WordPress website was regularly maintained, users occasionally experienced pages not loading correctly, accessibility issues, and unexpected website behavior.

We investigated both the hosting environment and the website itself. No significant server-side problems were identified. The main issues were linked to an outdated theme, legacy code, and technical complexity accumulated through years of modifications.

A complete website development project was therefore selected as the most sustainable solution. The website was rebuilt while preserving its visual identity, multilingual content, and donation functionality.

The Challenge

The existing website had evolved through several development cycles and included different implementation approaches.

The main challenges were:

• An outdated WordPress theme
• Legacy code and inconsistent development patterns
• Increasing maintenance complexity
• Occasional website instability
• Content in Serbian Latin, Serbian Cyrillic, and English
• Donation functionality that needed to be preserved
• The need to keep the live website available during development

Although WordPress core was regularly updated, these updates could not resolve the technical debt within the website’s underlying structure.

Investigation and Approach

The team reviewed the server environment, hosting stability, WordPress setup, existing theme, and custom website implementation.

The investigation confirmed that the issues were not caused by infrastructure instability. Rebuilding the website was considered more reliable than continuing with smaller fixes.

The new website was developed in a staging environment so the existing platform could remain accessible throughout the project.

Implementation Phases

Phase 1: Website Foundation

A new WordPress structure was created, and the outdated theme was replaced with a cleaner and more maintainable implementation.

The main layouts and visual elements were recreated to preserve the familiar appearance of the website while improving its technical foundation.

Phase 2: Content Migration

Approximately 20 pages and content items were transferred to the new platform, including:

• Informational pages
• Foundation projects
• Images and media
• Organizational content
• Existing website components

The content was reviewed during migration to ensure it remained complete and consistently structured.

Phase 3: Multilingual Setup

The new website was configured to support:

• Serbian Latin
• Serbian Cyrillic
• English

Existing translations were migrated, connected, and reviewed across all language versions.

The first language version was completed and presented to the client before the remaining versions were finalized.

Phase 4: Donation Functionality

The existing plugin-based donation functionality was migrated and tested within the new WordPress environment.

The team reviewed the donation flow, plugin configuration, and other user-facing features to ensure they worked correctly before launch.

Phase 5: Client Review

The client reviewed the first completed version in the staging environment, including:

• Visual design
• Page layouts
• Website structure
• Navigation
• Overall direction

Following approval, the team completed the remaining language versions, functionality, and final content.

Phase 6: Testing and Launch

Before deployment, the team tested:

• Pages across all languages
• Navigation and links
• Migrated content and media
• Donation functionality
• Responsive behavior
• Production migration

The new website was launched successfully without downtime or disruption to visitors.

Results

The Royal Foundation received a faster, more stable, and easier-to-maintain fundraising website while preserving the visual identity and functionality of the original platform.

Key improvements included:

• Improved website reliability and loading performance
• A cleaner and more consistent WordPress foundation
• Reduced dependency on outdated themes and legacy code
• Easier future website maintenance
• Support for Serbian Latin, Serbian Cyrillic, and English
• Successfully migrated donation functionality
• Preserved content, projects, images, and media
• Continued website availability during development
• Successful production launch without downtime

Conclusion

This fundraising website development project provided the Serbian Royal Foundation with a reliable digital platform for sharing its work, communicating with the public, and receiving online donations.

By combining website design, WordPress development, multilingual content migration, hosting support, and careful testing, we delivered a modern platform built for easier maintenance and future growth.