Case study ยท 2026

Pulse Awards

A complete awards platform the African American Marketing Association runs itself, from submissions and judging to Stripe payments and automated emails.

Shipped
2026
Delivered by
Chris K. Howard, end to end
Stack
Astro 5ReactSanityStripeResendCloudflare Workers
Public Pages
11
Astro 5 + React interactive flows
Sanity Schemas
13
Structured content architecture
Email Templates
9
Resend across submission lifecycle
Pulse Awards homepage mockup showing 'Celebrating Black Marketing Excellence' hero with Submit Your Entry and View Categories CTAs

Problem

The African American Marketing Association needed a dedicated awards platform to recognize excellence in marketing. Building a complete awards platform from zero required submission intake, Stripe payment integration, a multi-section admin dashboard, scoring rubrics for judges, and reliable email automation across the entire lifecycle.

Solution

Architected with Astro 5 and React for the interactive submission flow, Sanity CMS for content management across 13 schemas, Stripe checkout for payment processing, and Resend for 9 email templates covering confirmations, judge assignments, and notifications. Deployed with Cloudflare Workers SSR for edge performance.

Results

Fully functional awards platform with 11 public pages, a 7-section admin dashboard for managing submissions and judges, and automated email workflows that eliminated manual communication overhead.

All metrics

Public Pages
11
Sanity Schemas
13
Email Templates
9
Admin Sections
7

Architecture

flowchart TB
  V[Visitor] --> FE["Astro 5 + React<br/>Submission Flow"]
  FE --> ST[Stripe Checkout]
  ST --> SAN[("Sanity CMS<br/>13 schemas")]
  SAN --> JD["Judge Dashboard<br/>7 admin sections"]
  JD --> SCR[Scoring Rubric]
  SCR --> RES["Resend API<br/>9 templates"]
  RES --> E1[Submission Confirmation]
  RES --> E2[Judge Assignment]
  RES --> E3[Results Notification]
  FE -.deploy.-> CW[Cloudflare Workers SSR]
System architecture, rendered live from source.

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