Nonprofit Website Design for 2023 – A Primer
Nonprofit organizations face unique challenges when it comes to website design. Here are the very basics you must know before you start.
Nonprofit organizations face unique challenges when it comes to website design. Here are the very basics you must know before you start.
When a website, be it nonprofit or for-profit, is well thought out and branded, it will have a far better chance to exude the entity’s product and, or mission instantly than a website that is not. Moreover, it should appeal to the viewer’s sensibilities and be very user-friendly. In other words, the “user experience” (UE/UX) is vital for any website to compete in today’s WWW marketplace.
For commercial endeavors, the main goal is nearly always to make money, and that’s a given. But for the nonprofit sector, the answer is a bit more complicated.
For the nonprofit, success is not calculated as mere profit (though raising money is undoubtedly a significant priority if it wishes to survive) but rather how well it fulfills its overall mission. Therefore, the product, be it a widget or a social service, has to be sold to someone and generate revenue.
The for-profit website targets the product buyer—who is almost always (save for gift cards) the product’s end-user. So when creating your website for the commercial sector, you are communicating to one audience: the buyer/user.
The nonprofit website, however, generally addresses two audiences—often split equally. One message is for the product buyer (the donor of the product or service), and the other is for the product user (the people in need of the product or service—the client). And this sort of split-branding can be a challenge.
In both instances, the product needs to be well promoted as necessary to the buyer and of good value—be it a widget for oneself or a critical service to another. For the for-profit, this singular focus makes creating the web presence relatively streamlined.
But what about the nonprofit’s end user—the client? Their user experience will not be buyer’s satisfaction or even return on social investment (ROsI), but on when, where, and how to obtain the product/service and how quickly they can access it. (This client priority, by the way, is also essential to the buyer/funder who considers the overall user experience for clients as a reasonable ROsI.)
The ROsI continues beyond the product/service level for the funder or even how well the website offers equal space for donors and clients. The funder tends to look at multiple factors:
As for the client, their priorities may be:
There are pages and applications that are geared more toward the nonprofit than the for-profit:
In a nutshell, the user experience differs between nonprofit and for-profit websites, and we get that. Dot Org Web Works stand out from other website developers because we only work for the charitable nonprofit sector.
Traditionally, the holiday period is when many supporters decide on which charity to support and how much to give. (More than 30% of donations processed through Network for Good occur in December alone.) Well before Thanksgiving, you’ll want to ramp up your fundraising program, starting with your website.
First, and foremost, can your website process online donations securely and quickly? If not, Network for Good, Qgiv, and AffiniPay are just a few prime examples of donation services that specialize in processing credit card donations to nonprofit organizations.
Create a new Post/article showcasing the issue at hand (e.g.: For the homeless, winter is most difficult; Family service needs increase during holidays; Affordable housing solutions for families year-round, etc.). This Post should be given priority placement on your Home page with a strong, inviting, title.
Provide the opportunity, a call to action (CTA), for your website visitor to give to your program (per the above examples). Throughout your CTA, broadcast your success with the funding amount raised to date, and how much further to go to reach its goal.
Facebook recently added a “Donate Now” option to their call-to-action buttons. Take advantage of it.
Send out your e-newsletter before the crunch (such as the first week of November and December). And remember, about half of all emails are now read on mobile devices. You’ll want your e-newsletter formatted to view well on these smaller screens.
Many businesses supportive of your organization will gladly provide gift certificates and other products for you to give out as donation incentives. These free dinners, movie tickets, music CDs and whatnot can induce a $10 giver to give $40 or more. Giving benefits are a great way of maximizing everyone’s participation.
Don’t forget the final push to give in the last week. Send out e-update on the CTA’s success, and that this may be their last opportunity to be a part of this solution for this giving cycle.
As nonprofit professionals, we clearly understand the difference between a charitable nonprofit organization, to that of a for-profit enterprise.
The design and development of a website intended to raise awareness can be a real challenge. Here we offer the key steps to an effective awarness campaign.
Giving Tuesday 2021 (#GivingTuesday) is on November 30, 2021. So now may be your best time to really prepare for Giving Tuesday… you know, before crunch time comes.
In December, when former President Trump eventually signed the $900 billion Covid-19 relief package, I was first pleased and then (to be brutally honest) disgusted. At the expense of the staggering growing number of unemployed, what could have been a useful and much-needed additional assistance to them, instead deteriorated to a $600 offering to most every American who is not already doing very well economically.
The United States, and the world, have been in a pandemic for one year now; the economic devastation has been both relentless and immense. In December, new jobless claims rose to 900,000, which puts the total unemployed in the U.S. to about 12.6 million, which is the highest level since the Great Depression. In short, life is bleak for many of our loved ones, friends and neighbors.
Like most Americans, I should receive the so-called “stimulus” money sometime in January. The $600 amount will be appreciated for most people: it will allow them to buy food and some other immediate necessities–but not much else. For them, it is not a stimulus as it is a little something for now—to keep one’s head above water, like a tiny life preserver in the middle of the sea.
For others, the ones not yet in dire straits (such as myself), the $600 amount will be, ironically, a stimulus—disposable income.
If you are in the latter category, you might find that putting that $600 to real good use will be an attractive option. You can donate that amount to a struggling family or a charitable organization that will invest it into something life-sustaining.
Finding an organization that can put your stimulus to good work is easy. Here are a few suggestions:
On my shortlist of community organizations helping to lessen the impact of the financial crisis due to Covid-19, are:
Google’s Ad Grants program, which is part of Google for Nonprofits, has been helping tens-of-thousands of nonprofit organizations in more than 50 countries. And up until now, accessing the program could be a little bewildering—which is why I posted my first step-by-step guide “Nabbing Google Ad Grants” in 2017. Since that time, Google has refined its program and have made it easier to access,and a whole lot easier to set up your first ad campaign.
The first thing you will want to do is create a new, specific to your organization, Google account. (Do not use your personal account since you will want to keep a separation between you the person and the nonprofit organization you are representing.)
Then visit: https://www.google.com/nonprofits, scroll on down to near the bottom and begin the process within “Steps to get Google Products”.
Google requires that your organization be a nonprofit charitable organization meeting the full eligibility requirements in your country. For United States based organizations, this usually falls under 501(c)3 tax exempt status, but with the following exclusions: That your organization is:
You then need to get verified. Begin the verification process here. Specifically, you will need to be verified as a nonprofit organization by TechSoup or the local TechSoup partner.
Then request a Google for Nonprofits account, by going to: https://www.google.com/nonprofits/account/signup/us . Follow the instructions.
Once your nonprofit is verified, Google will inform you about accessing services such as Ad Grants.
Ad Grants has made a tutorial on how to create your free Google Ads. Visit: Start the course.
Content Management Systems (CMS) has been the choice for website developers ever since they metamorphosed from its humble beginnings as Dr. Glen Barry’s “blog” in the 1990s, to the web platform that is now powering the vast majority of all websites on the Internet. Though there were many startup CMS choices just a few years ago, the field has narrowed to three main competitors: Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress.
Currently, WordPress is by far the dominant choice. An astounding 64% of all CMS sites are from WordPress (or an even more amazing figure of 38% of all websites within the worldwide web). Trailing far behind is Joomla with its market share of 3.9% of CMS, and Drupal with 2.6% of CMS.
WordPress, Joomla and Drupal have their key technical features in common:
Installation and Use
WordPress is relatively easy to install. If you understand the basics of uploading files to a server and configuring the database (MySQL), then the process will take just a few minutes. (Although, WordPress comes with its “famous five minute install,” unless you are a professional or have prior experience, you better budget in a few more minutes.) Once you’re set up, you’ll be introduced to the Dashboard (control panel) where prime settings are adjusted, new Pages and Posts are made, and customization with the plugins are achieved. WordPress is quite intuitive—and, given its dominance in the market, very familiar to many website managers.
Joomla is also rather quick to install, but not as fast as WordPress. The control panel is a bit more complicated to navigate. Drupal’s installation is also fairly similar to WordPress and Joomla. Its post installation can be a bit complicated for beginners, and knowing how to make changes are not as intuitive. Overall though, they are all intuitive and should work fine for you once you’ve familiarized yourself with the chosen system.
Support
Because of WordPress’ popularity, there are more free support options available. Plus, WordPress has a massive support community through various forums and through WordPress.org. Joomla and Drupal also have support communities, although not as vast.
Plugins and Themes Availability
Where the real benefit of WP is over the other two, aside from a larger market share and user base, is its access to more than 38,000 plugins, which are free within the WordPress.org plugin directory. These are, of course, in addition to the “premium” plugins available to WP systems for a nominal cost.
Joomla and Drupal also have many templates and plugins that work with their respective systems, but they are not nearly as plentiful and the quality tends not to be as high.
Security
For many operators of CMS sites, security ranks near or at the top of concerns. All three provide for a respectable level of security, with quick remedies to counter hacks, and backup systems for when you need to re-install part or all of your website. Overall, there is no clear winner for the average CMS website in the security department. However, since WordPress is the bigger dog in the yard, hackers tend to focus on WP first. That said, all three CMS platforms have equally good response times and fixes for when security breaches are realized.
Two of the less talked about and more vulnerable aspects of a CMS framework, according to Randy Morris of Releventure, are plugins and themes. These prolific and popular elements provide a quick functionality fix, however oftentimes at the cost of security, as they usually have very few developers and not very frequent updates.
In general all three platforms have similar release cycles and robust communities. The key with each of these platforms will always be to follow proper security policies, maintain vigilant updating, use well-maintained monitoring and scanning services (such as Sucuri), have solid backups, and recover processes in place.
Winner?
The overall winner then? Well, since all three CMS are reliable and have adequate access to themes, plugins, and support communities, and each resolves security issues; it comes down to what your specific needs are. But if those needs are sufficiently addressed in all three (which is likely), then it comes down to user friendliness. That said, since WordPress has the natural advantage of being the most popular CMS, with its very user-friendly control panel (Dashboard) and its far greater percentage of users (e.g., staff and volunteers who are familiar with the system), this, in our view, puts WordPress on top.
WordPress is the go-to content management system platform for your nonprofit organization. Its user-friendly interface will inspire you to develop your nonprofit marketing to its full potential.