Some projects remind you why you got into this work in the first place. Our partnership with the Young Executive Leadership Academy is one of them.
YELA is a Winston-Salem-based nonprofit on a mission to equip high school and college students between the ages of 14 and 20 with the mindset, values, and leadership principles it takes to rise into executive roles. Scholars are mentored by seasoned professionals from Fortune 500 companies, put face-to-face with real decision-makers, and challenged to think seriously about their futures. It’s the kind of program that changes trajectories.
After a strong inaugural year, YELA came to us ready to grow. They needed a website that could help the program reach more students and get them through the door.
The Challenge
YELA had proven its model. Students were showing up, doing the work, and leaving with something real. But growing the program meant reaching more schools, more families, and more young people across the Winston-Salem area, and doing that well requires a digital presence that communicates value quickly and compellingly.
The website had to serve two audiences at once: inspire students to apply, and give schools and community partners the confidence to send them. That’s a tighter brief than it sounds.
What We Built
We designed and developed a website that puts YELA’s mission front and center. Clean, purposeful, and easy to navigate, it’s built to move a student from “I’ve never heard of this” to “I want to be part of this” in as few clicks as possible.
The application process is prominently featured because that’s the whole point. Every design decision was made in service of one goal: getting the right students to raise their hand.
Built for a Small Team to Run
One thing we’re always thinking about when we build for nonprofits is what happens after launch. Most organizations don’t have a developer on staff, and they shouldn’t need one to keep their website current.
So we built the YELA site to be genuinely easy to manage. Photos can be swapped out without touching a line of code. Text sections are straightforward to update as programs evolve, new cohorts come in, and stories change. The team can keep the site feeling fresh and accurate without having to call us every time something needs a tweak, though we’re always here when they do.
The feature we’re most proud of on the development side is the application form toggle. When applications are open, the form is live. When they’re closed, it disappears. No outdated forms sitting open past a deadline, no confusion for students or schools trying to figure out if they missed their window. It’s a quiet detail, but one that keeps the site honest about where YELA is in their cycle year-round.
That kind of thinking is something we try to build into every site: what does it look like on day one, and what does it look like on day three hundred?
Beyond the Screen
Our involvement with YELA didn’t stop at the deliverables. Several members of our team have gone into the classroom to lead sessions with YELA scholars on how to create effective presentations for their ideas.
It’s a topic we care about because learning to communicate a vision clearly is one of the most transferable skills a young leader can develop, and we were glad to be in the room for it.
Proud to Be Local
The Grove is based in Winston-Salem. We work with clients all over, but there’s something different about work that happens in your own community, with organizations investing in the people who live here.
YELA’s 2026 graduation ceremony brought their scholars together at the Albert H. Anderson Jr. Conference Center in May, a real milestone that followed real work. Knowing we played even a small part in helping YELA tell their story and reach more students is exactly the kind of outcome we build for.
When design works the way it should, it creates access. It removes friction between a mission and the people that the mission is meant to reach. That’s what we set out to do for YELA, and we’re proud of what we built together.
Know an organization doing important work in your community?
If you’re building something meaningful and need a partner who can help you show up the right way, we’d love to talk. Get in touch with The Grove →