There are certain times of year when that becomes particularly obvious. September, for example, tends to bring a lot of questions from schools about access and passwords, while the rest of the year can involve everything from funding and marketing to researching books and supporting the wider team.

And the team itself is small. Fiona, Olivia and Laura all come from education backgrounds, rather than being web developers, marketers or coders, so having an external team who can explain the technical side of things without making it feel intimidating has been important.

Fiona said Few and Far have “absolutely felt like an extension to our team”.

For her, that isn't just about having access to people with technical skills. It's also about feeling comfortable asking questions.

“I know that I can email them and they won't think I've asked a stupid question,” she said.

For a small organisation without a digital team sitting in the next room, that kind of relationship matters.

A quarterly process rather than something that takes over

The Story Project is now heading into its third year of the Nurture Programme with Few and Far, which means the relationship has gone well beyond the initial website project.

The team meets with Few and Far once a quarter, with actions coming out of each meeting for both sides to work on. That gives The Story Project time to actually implement things, see how they work, come back with questions and decide what needs to happen next.

For Fiona, that balance has worked particularly well because it means there is ongoing support without the process becoming something that takes over the team's day-to-day work.

“It’s been a nice amount of touch points through the year,” she explained, “which has been really positive.”

I think that is also where the longer-term nature of the relationship becomes useful. The website wasn't something that could realistically be understood in one meeting and then handed over. Few and Far have had time to understand how The Story Project works, who its schools are, what its funding looks like and what the team is actually trying to achieve.

Fiona described the process as “a conversation rather than a set of instructions”. The Story Project comes with ideas about what they want to do, Few and Far brings the web and technical knowledge, and the two meet somewhere in the middle.

That collaborative approach has been particularly important because, as Fiona put it, “you don't know what you don't know” when you're not from a web background.

Why stick with it for three years?

When I asked Fiona what had made them continue with the Nurture Programme, the answer was partly very practical: there has simply been plenty to do.

“The website just needed everything doing to it,” she said, and there is still plenty they want to improve.

But there is also something much simpler behind the decision to continue. The team has found Few and Far easy to work with, they feel supported, and the work is making a difference.

There hasn't been a point where The Story Project has felt that the support is no longer needed, particularly as the organisation itself continues to change.

And that brings us back to the value of having an ongoing relationship rather than treating the website as a one-off project.

As Fiona said when we talked about the 12-month commitment, a big website project takes time. It needs thought and consideration, but it also takes time for the people involved to understand the organisation properly.

“They have to know the context of what The Story Project is in order to create something successful and impactful for us,” she said.

That context doesn't happen overnight.

What’s next for The Story Project?

There is already plenty happening at The Story Project, so the next stage isn't about starting again with the website. It's about making sure it continues to reflect where the organisation is going.

Until recently, the programme has mainly focused on primary schools, with some secondary provision. The organisation is now expanding in both directions, with a new secondary programme, Positive Masculinities for young teens, as well as a new nursery programme.

That means the website and the processes behind it need to work for very different audiences, whether that's a nursery teacher, a primary teacher or someone working in secondary education.

One of the next areas Few and Far will be working on is the member experience. At the moment, members are taken fairly directly into the resources, while some of the additional support available to them, including training and other guidance, isn't as visible as it could be.

The plan is to bring more of that support to the front of the member area so that schools can see not just the resources themselves, but the wider support that comes with being part of The Story Project.

Alongside that, funding is naturally going to be an important focus for the organisation as existing funding arrangements develop over the coming years.

There is still a lot going on, in other words, and the website needs to keep moving with it.

A digital partner that feels like part of the team

When I asked Fiona to sum up her experience of working with Few and Far, she came back to something that had actually been a theme throughout our conversation: the people.

“Few and Far have been a really easy organisation to work with who have made a huge difference to who we are as a not-for-profit,” she said.

Three years with The Story Project: why good digital work takes time