Friendly Web Tools Blog

Most of my co-workers are a little freaked by the economy, but one of my nonprofit clients said something troubling to me the other day. He said many of his colleagues are reluctant to spend money on technology because they fear the recession.

I don’t always believe you have to spend money to make money, but in this case it’s really true. Some nonprofits have such horrendous websites that they pretend they don’t even exist rather than face the task of fixing them. They don’t understand that by having an ugly public face they’re actually hampering the advancement of their goals and sustainability. (NB: We’re hosting a presentation on usability on Sept. 2, 2008 at 2 Eastern - you can register for free.)

You don’t have to believe me. Jakob Nielson, the widely respected king of usability, wrote a wonderful article called “Do Government Agencies and Non-Profits Get ROI from Usability?” He says:

Although the gains don’t fall into traditional profit columns, there are clear arguments for improving usability of non-commercial websites and intranets. In one example, a state agency could get an ROI of 22,000% by fixing a basic usability problem.

Did you see that number? It really is 22,000 percent. Staggering. I don’t know a single funder that wouldn’t gasp at that kind of return and justify the funds to improve a website. Yes, people might read something about you in The Chronicle of Philanthropy or The Nonprofit Times, but people learn about your organization by going to your website. And they won’t learn anything if it’s not usable.

New websites don’t come free, but to have an unusable website and do nothing with it is a complete waste of money.

So today’s friendly Web tool is actually a whitepaper from ZD Net that will help you calculate the ROI (return on investment). It’s for a CRM system, but it can be applied to a website as well. Read it and get to cleaning up your website!

A client called the other day wondering why more people weren’t using their brand spanking new synagogue website. It was a nice site, all the bells and whistles, and there wasn’t a very good reason I could see that no one was using it. But it didn’t take long to figure out what the problem was.”Well, do the people in your congregation know about the site?”

“We sent an e-mail when it launched.”

“Do you mention it in your monthly bulletin?”

“No.”

“Do you have the URL on your business cards?”

“No.”

“Do you tell people during services that they can find more information on the site?”

“No.”

“Do you have a message on your voice mail about the website?”

“No.”

And that’s the problem with many websites - synagogue or otherwise. Just building it isn’t enough. Just mentioning it once isn’t enough. The marketing begins with other channels - and you undoubtedly have many available. Think about all the ways you touch your community, and make sure you use them to mention your website and its benefits.

Eventually they’ll come, and if you do it right, they’ll keep coming back.

Here’s another good reason for you nonprofits to set up your own websites: Google Grants. If you have 501(c)(3) status, you can apply to receive free AdWords advertising on Google – this is worth it! As cited on the Google site:

Google Grant recipients use their award of free AdWords advertising on Google.com to raise awareness and increase traffic. Three of our award recipients have achieved these results:

* Room to Read, which educates children in Vietnam, Nepal, India and Cambodia, attracted a sponsor who clicked on its AdWords ad. He has donated funds to support the education of 25 girls for the next 10 years.
* The US Fund for UNICEF’s e-commerce site, Shop UNICEF, has experienced a 43 percent increase in sales over the previous year.
* CoachArt, supporting children with life-threatening illnesses through art and athletics programs, has seen a 60 to 70 percent increase in volunteers.

Check out program details to see if you qualify. Google Grants recipients are selected every quarter, and they say you’ll know within six months whether or not you receive one.

Good luck!

Which would be the smarter way to run a project:

1. Leave all decisions-making power and creative control to a single person with a genius IQ, or
2. Share decisions and idea-making among a team of interested people?

There may be some power-hungry geniuses who could effectively argue the first choice, but my money is on a shared responsibility. No matter how well I know something, I can’t honestly believe I’ll think of every angle, and that’s why it’s important to gather feedback.

Yet many organizations - very often nonprofits with limited staffs - will leave construction and maintenance of a website to a single person. What a mistake!

When we work through projects with clients, we encourage them to discuss ideas together before coming to us. They’re usually surprised at how much their ideas about the site differ. This is one of the key reasons why you should assemble a reliable tech team to guide your organization through the process. I believe this is doubly true if your nonprofit is a church or synagogue or otherwise serves a large community.

Why build a tech team?

• It helps solicit feedback from your audience/congregation in an organized way
• Helps draw out other’s talents to achieve organizational goals
• It works!

When creating your tech team, make sure you have all areas of your organization represented, and make sure you know who’s in charge. Everyone has to have a voice, but it’s imperative for successful projects to have one person who can give the nod on development, and then have one person who can give the nod on an ongoing basis.

Once you’ve got your prospects for a tech team, run this checklist by yourself:

• Does your tech team adequately represent everyone in your audience/congregation?
• Is there a single person in charge who’s good at leadership?
• Have you decided who’s in charge on an ongoing basis?

Now you’ve got your dream team, you can put them to work on discovering what should go into your site. Best place to start? A needs assessment.

My friend Aaron Spiegel from the Alban Institutes’s Center for Congregations dug up an interesting commentary on the sins of church websites, “10 Easy Ways to Keep Me from Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your Website,” which he sites here.

The original post was written several years ago, and while some church websites have redeemed themselves, I’ve seen many, many synagogue sites that need serious overhauls. Same goes for any nonprofit.

The important thing to keep in mind is that people make judgments about your organization based on your website. Calendars are extremely useful tools, for instance, but I’d rather see no calendar at all than one that’s outdated by a year. Ignoring your site is worse than having no site at all.

Volunteers are a gift to a nonprofit website. The problem is, well, they’re volunteers. You’re counting on them to help out, but you’ve got respect their time and other limitations. A salary is a powerful incentive you can’t use with a volunteer.

It’s a chronic limitation for synagogue websites. The webmaster for a New York-based synagogue was talking about this with me the other day. She said, “One of the biggest challenges, of course, is that the site is managed on a fully volunteer basis and there is only so much time I can devote to it.”

We effectively face the same challenge with Talance’s company website – we squeeze in enhancements between other client projects. But knowing that anyone who comes to our website forms judgments on the quality of work we do based on what they see there, we also know it’s vitally important to keep performing upgrades.

My solution is to set up what equates to a project management checklist with a priority number next to each task and put it in a central location. Whenever a team member (including myself) has a bit of free time, we just pick something off the list and do it. It seems easier to attack in bite-sized bits, and things do eventually get done.

We have our own project management software we use, but you might look at Google Calendars and Docs & Spreadsheets for hosting a centrally accessible spreadsheet you can use for a tasklist. I think simpler is always better when it comes to tracking a project.

Targeting and addressing your website audience isn’t a problem for synagogues alone. Web ventures across the secular and religious world grapple with the same problem. But it’s important to know who you want to attract to your site, because it will affect not only how you build it, but who might be attending services and programs.

Generally speaking, synagogues can target existing members or new members. That’s just scraping the surface, though. You should know:

• How old are those people? If it’s an aging congregation, they might not know or care much about technology, but that’s not the same for younger generations. All synagogues should be addressing a younger membership, otherwise your existing membership will eventually fizzle out.
• Do they have kids? If so, put information front and center about Sunday school or Hebrew classes.
• Where do they live? If it’s a snowy climate, put cancellations on the homepage. And always include directions.
• What’s their economic situation? Would your congregants be interested in auctions? Registering for a 5K? Can you tap them for heavy fund development?
• What gender are they? Men and women will each have different questions about your programs.
• Can you guess what kind of technical equipment they have? Are they accessing your site through a PDA? Are they logging on antiquated equipment at school?
• Why are they visiting your site? Guests might want to know about membership information or how to find your building. Members might be interested in volunteer opportunities.

Synagogue sites should be inclusive for everyone, but by finding and knowing your target audience, you can prioritize information for them.

Here are some useful articles on how to learn more about your target audience:

Defining Your Target Audience from the American Marketing Association tells you how to conduct this research.

Evolt.org’s Making websites: what’s your target audience? speaks from a more technical perspective.

Entrepreneur’s Tech Forward blog has some solid advice on what kind of questions you should ask a company before you give them the green light to create a website for you. I agree completely with the advice, and this article is like an outline of the way we approach relationships with new organizations.

A reputable web services company should:

• Say their first step is to understand your needs
• Step up when it comes to explaining complicated technology
• Know what goes into the front end (design) and back end (architecture) of a website.

I’d be happy to share more information about how we interact with clients. Contact me at talance.com for more info.