Creating best-in-class websites
Powered by audience insights and developed by Big Bite, the Amnesty International WordPress theme, aptly named Humanity, is driving a global movement of collaboration and providing a platform that ensures everyone’s voice is heard.
Historically working with just two websites that couldn’t be shared among its community, Amnesty now has a single, reusable product that can be used with ease, irrelevant of the user’s coding experience.
The theme enables the human rights organisation to freely share code, blocks and custom plugins across the wider movement, fostering a community of support and collaboration. Within it, are much of the tools needed to set up and run an Amnesty website, allowing global teams to quickly and affordably build sites while adhering to the brand’s security, UX, and visual standards.
This shift is a tremendous step forward for the Amnesty team and is closely aligned with WordPress’ mission to democratising publishing and the freedoms of open source software.
47 sites launched using Humanity
Deployed in 28 countries
17 languages supported
28 bespoke Gutenberg blocks
Blocks
Humanity includes a wide range of blocks to enable editors of all technical abilities to easily put together rich content. This includes functional blocks such as the Collapsible Drawer Block, Menu Block and Tab Block that allow users to seamlessly navigate through web pages, as well as visual aids like the Slider block that showcases imagery to build user engagement.
Slider block example
Custom plugins
When using the WordPress theme, editors also have access to an extensive library of custom plugins developed on behalf of Amnesty, which aim to improve site performance and create a smoother experience for CMS users. As well as enabling groups to secure digital petition sign-ups and online donations, the available functionality covers everything from copyright protection and countdown timers, to plugins that connect with external platforms such as Salesforce and SharePoint. The theme also supports a selection of fully vetted third-party plugins.
Extendable foundation
The free-to-use theme is also fully extendable, which means that if it doesn’t meet the specific requirements for one of the many worldwide Amnesty teams, they can choose to fund additional development. In keeping with the open source approach, any added features can also then be shared with others using the theme, facilitating continuous expansion and improvement.
“It was always the plan for us to go open-source with our website theme. Open source is all about collaboration and community, and we’re really looking forward to working with other individuals and companies that share our vision and values
Austin, Amnesty International
Examples
Luxembourg used local developers to build a child theme with an eCommerce store
IS ESEAPRO team used the theme for the Mandarin Chinese language site
Contribute to the project
Organization
The Theme
Contributing
Project board
The new theme is now live at https://wordpresstheme.amnesty.org/ where you can view the feature list and contact the Amnesty Web Ops team. It can also be accessed on GitHub at https://github.com/amnestywebsite/humanity-theme