I was at a conference the other week that focused on technology and digital fundraising for nonprofits, and of course the hot topic was social media. And all I could think about was that all these charities were working so hard on a social media plan when many of them were just going to direct all sorts of potential prospects to sites that are poorly designed and won’t drive action.

Nonprofits, your web sites need work, now. Your web site is your most powerful marketing device, and it is the way almost ALL people who are new to your organization will be introduced to you. Allow me to fire you some advice, I hope it helps.

Manage it.

Your IT department should never manage your web site content, ever! And if your marketing department manages your site and the fundraising department has no influence, well that doesn’t work either. The fundraising department has to be a key decision maker for the site, because without donations, there is no site. It’s just that simple!

Make it unique.

If you are a hospital foundation, I feel for you. Your sites are generally the most jumbled, the messiest, the most confusing. You need to talk about research, patient care, and 50 other things until the visitor really sees nothing but a mess of words. Push to have an entirely separate site for fundraising. One where you control the call to action, the look, the content, get to tell all your amazing stories. Without having to add content that takes away from your core call to action.
Good example http://www.thechildrenshospitalfoundation.org

Keep it simple.

Simple is best. You know this, we agree it works, but for some reason once the build starts, charities seem to forget this. They build confusion, 10 sidebar items, 10 top nav items, hidden donate buttons, 12 ways to get involved, news articles in the middle of the page, and content, lots of content. Get 5 people who have never seen your site and ask them to perform a task, then watch them. Then, ask them about their experience. Look at other charity sites, commercial sites, and sites from around the world. Read blogs about web design, rate yourself, be critical, make changes. Check out these sites for solid design!

http://www.waronwant.org/

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/#

http://www.worldsgreatestshave.com/

http://jeans4justice.org/

Call to Action

This is often the area charities struggle with the most. They believe that if they don’t talk to every possible type of person that could arrive on their site (volunteer, donor, walker, 3^rd party fundraiser, advocate, expert, etc) they may lose them. What I have to ask is, “what do you want the visitor to do?” Make a donation? Easy. Make your top banner the ‘donate now’ button and ask straight away. Understand your call to action, then be up front about it. Take your top 3 requests and make that the 3 largest things on your home page. http://www.o2thinkbig.ie/ has it right. http://www.mercycorps.org/ has it right and they use stories to support the donations. Good site, needs larger brand presence http://www.barnardos.org.uk/ Amazing call to action area http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/

Stories, where are the Stories?

Every speaker at every conference I go to says “stories, tell great stories”, but they don’t say bury them on the back pages of your web site. The front page is where your great stories and your great people should reside. Right at the front! One of my favourite sites is Charity: Water yet they even buried their amazing stories 3 clicks in http://www.charitywater.org/projects/fromthefield/index.php I wrote a blog recently on video, all the amazing video moments you have should be the first thing that captures me and draws me in. Great example http://www.fightback.ca/

I hope this motivates you to change. Your web site is the MOST VALUABLE marketing tool you have; it is a digital introduction to your charity and what you do. First impressions are very important, so go fix your site.