A New Website for a Nonprofit

Our local no-kill animal shelter needed a new website, and we were delighted to build one for them. Nonprofits may not be selling anything (although that’s not always the case), but they certainly want to encourage donations, volunteers, and public awareness of their cause. For all these things, a website is a must. But nonprofits often have a website built by an enthusiastic volunteer or intern who may not have prioritized management by others after they’ve moved on, or even thought about SEo or user experience in the way a professional does. A new website for a nonprofit deserves the same kind of attention a business site does…but often doesn’t get it.

This website had the great advantage of a thoughtful and organized committee working on it. They had clear ideas about what they wanted and they were also open to our questions and concerns. Here are some things we thought about in building this site. You should also consider these points when you’re working on your nonprofit’s website.

What assets do you have?

This is always one of our first questions. The Humane Society for Animals had some clear advantages.

• The had an old domain. Simply having been online for a long time is an advantage. The Humane Society had some traffic and rankings, even though the website was outdated and didn’t have easy paths to the actions they wanted their visitors to take. Still, they were clearly a legitimate and trustworthy domain connected with a legitimate and trustworthy organization. If you have that going for you, don’t be in a hurry to change your web address.
• They had an excellent story. If you have a great history, an impressive mission, or an inspiring Origen story, be sure to showcase it. People respond well to stories.

• They had great pictures. Any website that has cute pictures of puppies has an advantage. Your nonprofit may not focus on cute animals but you are sure to have some assets that can make you stand out. Another of our nonprofit websites had the rights to a series of TV commercials for their cause featuring U.S. presidents, while another had true stories of involvement with major historic events. Spend some time brainstorming to come up with the visible special things you have the rights to use on your website. It will be time well spent.

What do you want people to do at your website?

The Humane Society wants people to adopt their dogs and cats, to volunteer, and to donate. But they had a clear path in mind for each of those goals, with specific online actions. So they want their website to encourage people to fill out an online adoption form, to fill out an online volunteer form, and to click on the links to their donation platforms.

It didn’t start out that way. These discussions often begin with goals like these:

• Become curious about our cause.
• Care more about our cause.
• Come to one of our meetings.

These can’t be measured as well online as goals like “Fill out an online volunteer form.” And at first, the method for becoming a volunteer involved coming to the shelter, filling out a physical form, and having a training session. Again, not as measurable. Without measurable actions to track, you can’t tell which tactics work best, and you always want to do more of what works.  After some discussion and thought, the committee agreed to have the volunteer form as the first step, even though they wanted a more complicated process before their volunteers began interacting with the dogs at the shelter.

What Are Your Website Goals?

What do you want to be able to do with your website?

The days when you could put up a website and sit back while it did its job for you are over…if they ever actually existed in the first place. The information at your site needs to be kept up to date, at the absolute minimum. Adding fresh content regularly is essential if you want to improve rankings, AI mentions, and traffic. Keeping up with human responses is a must if human beings happen to be your target market.

Who will do that? If you have volunteers who want to do this, that’s great. A staff member is even better, since you can  replace them with another hired person and you can make some tech skills or willingness to learn a requirement in your hiring decisions. If you’re prepared to hire a webmaster, you’re in an excellent position. Whatever you decide, making the decision is necessary so that you can build your new website in a way that supports your plan.

Using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress is always the best approach when you’re building a new website for a nonprofit. Paying a professional every time you want a change at your website can add up. If budget is not a major issue, then you’re better off as a retainer client for  full-service web agency. If you’re pinching pennies or you’d like instant access, you are more likely to succeed with WordPress than with a less user-friendly option.

But the very easy website platforms that brag about how you can just push a button and let AI build it for you will not get you the results you want. You have limited control. A more robust system allows your designers to build you a site that allows you to have control over the areas you want to control without worrying about the parts you don’t expect to change frequently. For the Humane Society, for example, we made sure to set up their blog posts so they could upload a featured image and be confident that it would show up on the post and on the homepage in the right places without any design decisions.  You should be able to tell your web team what you want to be able to do with your website and have confidence that they’ll make it happen.

Does your nonprofit need a new website? Contact us to discuss your needs.