It’s true that your website should be a reflection of your organization’s goals and audience, but there are a few proven tools that we suggest again and again because they simply work. They make a more interactive website. They drive more support. They deliver information most efficiently.

I happen to be right, but you don’t have to take my word for it. I ran a check against some of best top non-profit websites out there – the ones that were official nominees for the 14th annual Webby awards – to see what tools they had on their homepages.

Here are the top eight and why they work so well. Keep reading and you’ll see the breakdown for Teenage Cancer Trust, ASPCA, One, SocialVibe and The Nature Conservancy.

Search

There’s only so much information you can cram onto your homepage. Search provides a way for website users to tap into your reservoir of information.

Donate button

You’ve got to earn money, and people want to give it. Don’t stand in their way.

Newsletter

Establish a regular newsletter and then encourage people to sign up. This way you can remind them that you exist and that what you do matters.

Slide show

Slide shows are an efficient way to display evocative, image-based content in a confined space.

Blog

Blogs not only keep your constituency informed of what you’re doing, but they also help fill your website with content. That gives search engines more to latch onto, and therefore drive more people to your website.

Social media plug-in

Whether you have an initiative on Facebook or Twitter or some other social networking platform, bring it into your website. It serves as a cross-promotional element and gives people other ways to interact with you.

Featured stories

Websites can go stale quickly, but a list of featured stories or news items can keep it fresh.

Here are the tools those top five non-profits are using on their websites. Look familiar?

Teenage Cancer Trust

• Search
• Donate button
• Slide show
• Latest news
• Newsletter
• Directory/support network

ASPCA

• Search
• Join now button
• Donate button
• Newsletter
• Highlighted stories
• Online shop
• Social media accounts

One

• Join now button
• Search
• Slide show
• Newsletter
• Blog
• Social media accounts

SocialVibe

• Slide show
• Newsletter
• Facebook link
• Twitter feed
• Blog

The Nature Conservancy

• Search
• Newsletter
• Slide show
• Interactive map
• Social share
• Social media accounts

Never one to turn down a free bagel, I sent away for a coupon from my friendly neighborhood bagel shop. They e-mailed it, as promised, but without any regard for the way most e-mail programs by default disable images. Because the entire thing is an image, I couldn’t tell what arrived in my in-box, and I almost deleted it before recognizing the subject line.

Here’s what I was looking at:

What happens if you go picture-bonkers

The lesson? Use images judiciously in your outgoing messages. And always make sure you use ALT text in case pictures don’t display.

One of the first questions we ask during the kickoff of a new project is, “Who’s taking ownership of this project?” It’s incredible how many times that answer is, “Nobody.”

Unless you plan to let your website turn into a ghost town, put somebody in charge. Appointing no one as the website manager will have one of two outcomes: no one will do anything and your site will rot, or someone will do everything, but you’ll never respect or realize the amount of work they do.

Being a website manager is a big job. Bigger than you may realize. This is often the go-to person for all questions and updates for the website. If anyone wants something done, it falls to them. And the job doesn’t end. When the web development project is over, you take over updates and maintenance.

OK, now I’ve convinced you that you need to appoint someone as the website manager, and that their job is an important one. But who to appoint? Look for someone who …

Knows a little (not not necessarily a lot) about how web pages are built

Contrary to popular belief, whoever manages your website does no need to be a techno-wiz. If you need any heavy lifting done, it’s usually easier and cheaper to ask your web development company to help out. Of course, providing you have a good relationship with them. The majority of updates to your site will be tweaks here and there, which are mostly text changes. It is helpful if your web manager knows what a P-tag is and has monkeyed around with a content management system or two.

Is wildly organized

To work well with a computer, it helps to think a little like a computer. I’m still talking carbon-based life form, but that life form should be very organized. This person should be keep schedules and be good at documenting methods for updates and changes. They should have systems for organizing copy and pictures. They should remember passwords. They should be good at follow-through.

Is a good promoter

Your manager extraordinaire should also be savvy about promotion. Even if you have a marketing person on staff, your manager should know something about how to submit your website to search engines or repost blog entries. It’s helpful if they’re familiar with Facebook or Twitter, because they can help broadcast your message to a wider public. They can also be looking at new ways to promote your mission beyond what you might think up.

A good web manager can pay for themselves several times over. You’ll be glad you started taking this position seriously.

The good people at JFFixler Group know that the entry point to your organization is your website. That’s why they asked me to contribute an article to their blog about the 7 Best Homepage Updates you can do. They’re quick, they’re easy, they pay off. Check it out:

7 Best Website Updates on JFFixler Group blog.

Wikipedia is ranked the 6th most popular in the world (fifth most popular in the US), so it might come as a surprise that it has only a staff of 10, and the rest of it’s enormous success is built on volunteers. Wikipedia is a non-profit. (Cash-strapped non-profits: think about that next time you’re wondering how you’ll get everything done on your current budget.)

Of those 10 employees, almost all of them are focused on keeping the website up and running. They manage the site, handle design, manage servers, babysit the network – generally make sure that the information goes where it needs to. The volunteers, on the other hand, feed the site, make sure the copy is correct, handle bite-sized tasks, which in the aggregate, are enough to make Wikipedia one of the biggest sites on the planet.

The important lesson here is not just that you can accomplish great things with volunteers, but that they need to be applied to the correct task. If something is as integral to your organization as your website, pay for it. You’ll free up volunteers for other tasks that meet their individual skills without weighing them down with such a complicated task as a website, but you’ll never be emotionally beholden to someone who’s donating their sweat (and possibly tears) to your site.

[This little gem is the e-mail newsletter our subscribers just received. Want a slice of this for yourself? Sign up now.]

Logos, you might think, are easy to find these days. There are a million contest websites, services that sell logos for the cost of dinner and plenty of well-intentioned relatives that like to monkey around with graphics programs.

That makes bad logos easy to find. Good logos are completely different. They follow a few simple but important guidelines:

• They’re unique. This means that good logos are completely original and contain no clipart. Clipart looks cheesy, and it can’t always legally be used in a logo. Logos also shouldn’t copy the latest trend.
• They fit. In other words, they should reflect your organization and effectively communicate your message. They should reinforce who you are.
• They’re simple. When you shrink a logo, it should still look like a logo. It shouldn’t look like a complicated blob that makes no sense. (I often think about the way state seals look when they’re reduced to letterhead size: usually like fuzzy circles.)
• They have a strong concept. They can be abstract, but they should still mean something. There too many nonprofit logos that are an inexplicable squiggly line. What does a squiggly line mean?
• They can be scaled up. If you want to print your logo on a poster, you should be able to. It should be smooth with no jagged edges. The secret here is a vector graphic, which scales up as well as it scales down.
• They’re effective without color. Think about your logo as it goes through a fax machine, or what it looks like if you have a black and white printer. None of it should disappear.

You’re better off using a consistent font to represent your organization than a bad logo. Make the right choice in logos, and you should have an image that supports your organization for years to come.

By Jill Friedman Fixler and Beth Steinhorn, JFFixler & Associates

This is a guest post from two of our favorite clients: Jill Friedman Fixler and Beth Steinhorn of JFFixler & Associates. Jill is the President and Founder and Beth, a Senior Strategist, coordinates the marketing at this consulting firm that specializes in transforming organizations through innovative volunteer strategies. The firm works with some of the biggest names in the sector, including Canadian Cancer Society, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Hostelling International – USA, California State Libraries, and many more. Since April is National Volunteer Month, and these two are the go-to experts on the subject, we asked them to write about how to engage volunteers in your marketing efforts.

In a time when economic reports continue to bring challenging news to nonprofits, it’s rare to read about a resource that’s growing – but volunteers are a growing resource that can help your organization fulfill its strategic priorities. You can harness the abundant skills and interests of your volunteers and apply them towards your organization’s priorities, including marketing and communications.

Here are a few examples of how volunteers, cultivated strategically, can help your organization fulfill its marketing objectives:

Developing an Effective Marketing Plan

Engage marketing professionals as pro bono consultants to advise your marketing team on effective tactics. They can consult on the development of a realistic marketing plan, share trends to inform how you prioritize your efforts, and leverage their existing relationships with local media to get coverage of your organization. Many corporations are seeking ways to shift their philanthropic efforts from cash to in-kind, pro bono contributions. Contact local companies to see if they will “loan” their marketing professionals to your organization and connect with local volunteer centers and online volunteer matching organizations, such as VolunteerMatch.org.

Keeping your Website Dynamic and Updated

Keeping your website dynamic and up-to-date is a challenge for many organizations – but it is critical to maintaining a meaningful dialogue with your constituents. Who amongst your existing volunteer corps is proficient in online technologies? Who is a good writer? They can be tapped to partner with staff to enhance your web presence. A technologically savvy volunteer can become your “Calendar Guru,” keeping your online calendar updated and posting new, relevant events on your calendar as well as other community calendars. Volunteers who are good writers can write guest blogs, sharing their stories and interviewing others to diversify the “face” of your organization, while also sharing important news with your followers. Don’t have a Twitter account yet for your nonprofit? Consider cultivating a “Twitter Tutor” to help staff set up the account, research and select the organizations and individuals to follow, and help staff and other volunteers determine how and when to tweet and post links.

Promoting Your Programs and Other Volunteer Opportunities

It’s easy to get caught up in technology as the marketing world continues to change at lightning speed. However, it’s important to remember that technology is most effective when it is used as a tool to extend the ever-powerful “word of mouth.” Whether marketing programs, cultivating new donors, or engaging volunteers, word of mouth reigns supreme. The vast majority of your volunteers are online. How can they use their profound networks to share the work of your organization and engage their friends (real or virtual!) with you? Provide your volunteers with carefully crafted messages about upcoming programs for them to easily post on their Facebook status; ensure they list their volunteer work with a link to your website on their LinkedIn profiles; and ask that they forward your volunteer opportunities to friends and colleagues who may have the skills you are seeking in new volunteers.

Engaging volunteers to enhance your marketing efforts is a powerful strategy. Developing project-specific opportunities for people to share their experience as marketing directors, PR specialists, writers, or graphic designers will attract new volunteers to the organization while also helping you fulfill your strategic objectives. Meanwhile, engaging your existing volunteers in your marketing efforts is also critical. They know your organization and can tell your story in ways that staff can’t. Having them share why they feel connected to your mission and how your organization helps make the world a better place is compelling and powerful and will strengthen your presence now and in the future.

For additional ideas about how volunteers can help with your website, see Talance’s earlier posting, 21 Ways Volunteers Can Help with Your Website.

About the Authors

Jill Friedman Fixler is a thought leader on building organizational capacity through re-inventing, re-engineering, and re-vitalizing volunteer engagement. As Founder and President of JFFixler & Associates, Jill combines her skills as a consultant, trainer, facilitator, public speaker, and coach to share new volunteer engagement strategies with organizations throughout North America.

Beth Steinhorn is a Senior Strategist with JFFixler & Associates and has over two decades of experience in nonprofit organizations, including museums, education agencies, and faith-based organizations.

I’m in the middle of researching a massive project now where most people I’ve interviewed say something to this effect: “Rather than go through the hassle of updating the website, we’ve just let it go.”

What a waste! To have a website that people are actually visiting (even if there aren’t many), and that can be actually working for you is a waste of time, space and even reputation. Sure, websites take dedication and work to update, but it shouldn’t be so hard to work with that you simply let it go.

Solution: the blog.

Blogs are workhorses. Your website can be fairly static, but if you have a blog, it instantly becomes dynamic. They constantly pump new information into your site, and provide a way for you to disseminate important information to your audience. If they’re using RSS feeds, they don’t even need to remember to go to your site. Turn on comments, and you can have a discussion with the people who visit.

What to write about?

• Project updates
• New grants
• The people around your office
• Useful information for your clients
• Trends in your field

Anything that shows your funders, investors or prospects that you know what you’re doing.

If you make one addition to your website, make it a blog. And the pledge to work on it at least once a week. It’ll do wonders for making your site relevant.

This is a guest post from one of our favorite clients: Jenny Aisenberg, Knowledge Development Manager at JESNA and JESNA PDC, an organization that provides Jewish educational coordinating, planning and development. We asked Jenny what blogs she turns to regularly for help running her job at a Jewish education non-profit.

In my role as Knowledge Development Manager at JESNA, one of my key responsibilities is to keep my finger on the pulse of the Jewish world in social media. If there’s a resource on the web for Jewish educational and lay leaders, I wanna know about it—and share it with you! Every week, I update our Sosland Online Resource Center with the newest in blogs, tools, websites and more for the benefit of Jewish communities near and far. These top five picks are just the tip of the iceberg! I hope you’ll enjoy exploring them, and email me your ideas for other resources we should know about at jaisenberg@jesna.org.

1. Innovation in Jewish Education Blog

This is the blog of the Office of High School Programs at Brandeis University, drawing on BIMA and Genesis, their two summer programs for high school students, as living laboratories. I love seeing the thoughts and reflections of a whole panoply of educators who work with teens here, on topics ranging from “Self-perception and Participant Investment in the Intentional Community” to “Jewish Education and Family Priorities.” Plus, who wouldn’t love these tags?

2. The Alban Roundtable

A self-proclaimed “virtual meeting place for congregational leaders,” the Alban Roundtable blog is the social media hub of The Alban Institute, founded in 1974 as a major resource for American congregations facing the challenges of a changing society. As a leader in my own congregation in Park Slope, Brooklyn (I’m the chair of the 20’s/30’s social group and a former Hebrew School teacher) I have a deep appreciation for this kind of resource, where I can learn from others who face similar challenges, yet aren’t part of my daily grind.

3. Jew Point 0: The Darim Online Blog

Darim Online is the home of “Internet Strategies for Jewish Organizations and their Communities,” and their blog, run by our good friend Caren Levine, first launched in August 2008 as a place for Darim staff to share useful nuggets that arise from both their work and personal lives. This is a particularly succulent knowledge-sharing resource for anyone looking for guidance in the use of technology and social media in Jewish settings.

4. Jewcy

Most progressive young Jews under 30 know about this emergent online media outlet/blog/social network/brand by now, but it’s too, well, juicy to leave off my list! First launched in 2006, Jewcy is a forum for discussion of politics, culture, sex, religion and lifestyle in the Jewish world today. It has been called “the social media hub of the Jewish hipster movement” by The New York Times. Gee, and I thought I had a lock on that title…

5. Storahtelling Blog

This one is near and dear to my heart, and a wonderful resource for Jewish educators and community leaders interested in bringing new vibrancy to Jewish ritual and synagogue life. Storahtelling fuses storytelling, Torah, contemporary performance art and traditional ritual, both here in Manhattan and at synagogues around the globe. On their blog, you’ll find everything from the weekly drash, Storah-style, to tales from the road as they visit and perform at synagogues near and far. If you’re up for a trip to Boston, check out their summer educators’ training, StorahLAB.

Organizations are so passive when it comes to their websites, but you want to be just the opposite. When you want something, ask for it. Otherwise you’ll never get it. Opt for active urgent language. Rather than, “Our Newsletter,” change your text to “Get our newsletter now.”

Minor change, major results.

Here are some sample calls to action you can put on your website now. Each should be a link or a button – something that will let your visitors complete the action.

1. Donate now!
2. Sign up for our newsletter
3. Take a tour
4. Sign up for free
5. Be a volunteer
6. Read the buzz
7. Register immediately
8. Try it
9. Give us feedback
10. Support us
11. Help us today