GovFresh WP: A Free WordPress Theme For Governments

This week GovFresh, a government and technology blog, launched a new WordPress theme project to help promote the use of open source software among governments.

If you’ve ever visited a local government website that looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1999, then you understand the problem that the folks at GovFresh are trying to tackle here. Many smaller cities do not have a technology budget to afford website consulting services and therefore get left behind. It’s mind boggling to see how widespread this problem is, given all the user-friendly open source technology available these days.

The deplorable state of government websites inspired Luke Fretwell to develop GovFresh WP, a free WordPress theme for governments.

GovFresh WP is a starter theme based on Bootstrap and features all the basics for building a modern website:

Mobile-friendly and adapts to all devices (PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone)

Custom header and background images

Homepage, sidebar, footer widgets

Data portability – change the design and never lose your content

It also comes with a list of recommended plugins to help those administering government websites to get started, including solutions for performance and caching, workflow, analytics, security, SEO and more.

Calling on WordPress Developers to Help

Luke Fretwell is looking for help from the WordPress developer community and GovFresh WP is now available on github. He wants to improve the theme and incorporate new ideas, which will require some rebuilding of his code.

The project currently has two pilot cities, De Leon, TX and Ferndale, WA, running on the theme, and there are plans in the works to offer support for small city web operations. It would be exciting if the theme had some support for incorporating open data features into the website in the case of cities or agencies. If you can help to further develop GovFresh WP or have suggestions to improve it, get in touch with Luke Fretwell at GovFresh. By contributing to this theme you will be helping smaller governments to more adequately serve their citizens.