Structuring for Accessibility: Why Header Tags Matter

Creating an accessible website means ensuring content is understandable and navigable for all users. One simple and effective way to improve website accessibility is by using HTML header tags (also called heading elements). Header tags act like the chapters and section headings in a book. They organize content into a meaningful and navigable structure. Sighted users often rely on bold fonts, spacing, or colors to skim and find information on a web page. But for users relying on screen readers, keyboard navigation, or voice control, properly used header tags serve as essential anchors that

Extending CiviCRM: Open Source Tools by Skvare

CiviCRM’s greatest strength lies in its flexibility. With the right configuration and extensions, it can adapt to the specific needs of nonprofits, government entities, membership associations, and mission-driven organizations of all types. At Skvare, we’re not just helping organizations use CiviCRM; we’re active believers in the power of open source. We contribute code, share tools, and collaborate with the community to help the entire ecosystem thrive. CMS-Independent and Stand-Alone Compatible Extensions Here are just a few of the open source CiviCRM tools and integrations the Skvare team

Scaling Our Email Infrastructure: From Postfix to AWS SES

While our Postfix setup on cloud server was well-tuned and could reliably handle 3–4 million emails monthly, we began experiencing issues with mailing services not from raw delivery volume, but from the complexity introduced by compliance, client separation, and maintenance overhead. Previously, unsubscribe requests and complaint notifications were routed to a shared mailbox, where a scheduled job would periodically parse and process them. While functional, this approach lacked the robustness and scalability required for long-term growth. As we scaled to manage email delivery for tens of

Skvare Becomes Drupal Community Organization Member

We are excited to announce that Skvare has officially become a Drupal Community Organization Member. This milestone demonstrates our ongoing commitment to supporting the Drupal community, contributing to open-source innovation, and fostering collaboration across the ecosystem. What is a Drupal Community Organization Membership? Drupal’s Organization Membership Program provides a way for organizations to support and contribute to the Drupal Association and Drupal project. Members are acknowledged for their efforts in code contributions, community engagement, sponsorships, and advocacy for

Skvare Infrastructure Series - Monitoring

At Skvare we host a diverse set of clients, with varying performance characteristics, this unpredictability increases the importance of monitoring in order to be aware of changes as they occur. Skvare has a mix of common industry tools, along with bespoke internal tools used for monitoring. We take an approach of using common industry tools when possible, and when they don't fit our needs we develop our own solutions. Infrastructure monitoring To monitor server performance metrics we use a centralized prometheus instance, paired with grafana for visualization, and netdata for server monitoring

CiviCRM Extension Composer Plugin

Starting with Drupal 8, composer is used to manage web site dependencies and to download packages to the server. A Drupal and CiviCRM website requires 100s of packages to provide the large set of functional components. Composer simplifies the process of determining which versions of packages will all work together appropriately, and fetching all of them and putting them in the right place in the code base. Recently I read this recent blog article which advocates for setting a standard, that all extensions include the necessary definition to allow downloading CiviCRM extensions with composer. I

CiviCRM Form Builder Blocks Drupal Module

CiviCRM Form Builder is a powerful and rapidly-evolving CiviCRM feature which has seen major advancements in each of the past several versions. This extension allows site builders to create custom forms to filter custom SearchKit searches, create simple contact creation forms, and much more. The end goal is for Form Builder forms to replace all public and admin forms throughout CiviCRM Core. The Form Builder forms can be pages in the CiviCRM backend, or embedded into Contact Summary page panes and tabs. Forms can also be embedded in WordPress posts using shortcodes. Something can be done in

Maximize Your Website’s Reach with Skvare’s Accessibility Audit and Training

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 15 percent of the world's population — 1.3 billion people — self-identify as having a disability, while 1 in 4 adults in the United States have some type of disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control. 1 2 A study in the United Kingdom found that 71 percent of web users with a disability will leave a website that is not accessible. 3 That’s a lot of potential clients, customers, and members to exclude. But web accessibility isn’t just for people with visible disabilities. About 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women are color blind

Skvare Celebrates 16 Years of Delivering Technical Solutions

Skvare has been dedicated to delivering high-quality web solutions to its clients and making a positive impact in the world since inception in 2008. July 27, 2024 marks the 16th anniversary of Skvare, a digital agency that specializes in helping nonprofits and mission-driven organizations leverage open-source technologies to further their impact. This year we’re celebrating with a video series highlighting the unique approach and talents of every member of the Skvare team. A Humble Beginning with a Bold Vision Skvare’s story begins with it’s founder, Peter Petrik, whose vision and passion laid

Skvare is now Climate Neutral Certified

Skvare is proud to announce it is officially Climate Neutral Certified. Skvare joins the growing movement of companies achieving the Climate Neutral Certified standard by measuring its 2023 greenhouse gas emissions, taking action on reduction plans, and compensating their brand footprint with eligible-verified credits. Climate Neutral Certified is the leading consumer label for climate neutrality. It is earned by organizations that have chosen to be accountable for the greenhouse gas emissions generated in the production, operations, and shipping of their goods and services. "When I became the