Scalable platform that supports Jewish literacy

About the client

The Harold Grinspoon Foundation is a nonprofit organization that supports Jewish life and learning through a wide range of educational and cultural programs. With flagship initiatives like PJ Library and PJ Our Way, the foundation promotes literacy, identity, and engagement among Jewish families across North America and around the world.

Client quote

“They were excellent. Always on point with deadlines. We found next to no bugs. Responsive, even across time zones. Their attention to detail was outstanding… We estimated a 97% success rate on a 50,000-people rollout.”
— Eric Jordan, CIO at HGF

Business challenge

The Harold Grinspoon Foundation needed to upgrade PJ Our Way — its book program for Jewish kids aged 8 to 12 — before its outdated site held back the program's growth. The old platform was slow, hard to update, and didn't offer the interactive experience kids expect today, which was starting to limit engagement.

The rebuild had to solve several problems at once:

• Performance at scale: support up to 50,000 users and 5,000+ simultaneous sessions without lag.
• Two distinct audiences: parents and children needed separate interfaces, with content,  UI/UX design, navigation, and permissions tailored to each.
• Gamification logic: kids earn badges for reading activity, which required custom logic to track and reward actions accurately.
• Accessibility: the platform needed to be usable by all users, regardless of ability.
• Content management: admins needed a simpler way to update books, events, and content across the site.
• ERP connectivity: the new site had to integrate cleanly with the foundation's existing Microsoft Dynamics NAV system.

Solving this meant rebuilding on Kentico MVC with an architecture that could carry both the performance load and the day-to-day editorial workload, without adding complexity for the foundation's staff.

Solution

To deliver on performance, our web development team used a Kentico MVC architecture with web farms and layered caching. This gave us full control over how pages loaded and made the site much faster across the board.

Here’s what we delivered:

• Split view for kids and parents — Users can toggle between child and parent modes on any page. The layout, permissions, and content shift accordingly.

• Gamification features — Kids earn badges for reading activity, tracked with custom logic behind the scenes.

• Custom admin modules — Editors can easily manage book titles, reading lists, events, and user data inside Kentico’s admin interface.

• Content staging and versioning — New content can be previewed and pushed live with one click.

• ERP integration — The site connects directly to Microsoft Dynamics NAV and a custom API built on top of it, made possible through robust CMS integration services.

• Onboarding tour — A built-in guided tour helps new users find their way around.

• Accessibility improvements — We followed best practices to ensure the site is usable by everyone.

Architecture: before vs after

Results

The new PJ Our Way platform gave the Harold Grinspoon Foundation the tools they needed to serve a growing audience without overloading their team. The site is faster, easier to manage, and better suited to how kids and parents use it.

• Handled peak traffic without performance issues — up to 5,000 concurrent users

• Reduced admin workload by simplifying how books, events, and content are updated

• Improved engagement with kids through interactive features and personalized experiences

• Clearer experience for parents with a dedicated view and content tailored to their needs

• Stronger accessibility ensured all users, regardless of ability, could fully participate

• Smooth backend operations thanks to seamless integration with Microsoft Dynamics NAV

This upgrade wasn’t just technical — it helped PJ Our Way grow its impact. By making the platform more stable and inclusive, the foundation can better fulfill its mission: fostering Jewish identity, strengthening community, and empowering the next generation to connect with their heritage through stories.