Q.  What does make for a good photo on the Web?

 

A.  Clean backgrounds, Contrast, Good Composition, and Emotional Appeal.

And, if you can find it, pictures that are "inclusive" rather than "exclusive."  Most people can relate to the picture above on some level.  Depending on the Audience, that will tell you if you've hit your mark.  Imagine the picture above used with this type of website copy (text):

"When it came to planning Retirement..."

"When it came time to help Mom when she was getting older..."

Modern Americans have been exposed to sophisticated advertising all their lives.  You know more than you think you do about your site images and copy.  That's really why nonprofit sites that have "mission" are easier to build than business sites.  Why?  "Mission" should be easy to communicate.  "Product" and "Service" are not as emotionally appealing.

 

 

Q. What do you find is the most troublesome aspect of nonprofit design and hosting?

 

These 3 things:

• Lack of management attention or priority to website development.  Many nonprofit managers are new to the internet or still think of it as a toy rather than a major outreach tool for their organization.
• Nonprofit people are always pressed for time.  Getting really good, well-edited copy from them can be very difficult. Good copy is also easy to read copy written for a 6th grade level of reading comprehension.
• Decision-making is sometimes over-delegated.  But the same things can be said about for-profit organizatiions too.

 

I cannot overstate the importance of well-written and well-edited copy for a nonprofit, whether it is to be published as a letter to the editor in the newspaper, or in an email, or on a webpage.

By the way, our SEO section has a free SEO guide that may help.

After that, my pet peeve is spell-checking, but that's an overall pet peeve.  (I should do more of it myself.)

 BEST TECHNOLOGIES?

Q.  My Nonprofit needs a website.  What do you think the best route for us to go might be?  Joomla?  WordPress?  Firstcupsite?  Dreamweaver (html site with a webmaster who handles all changes)?  How about Google sites or even Intuit?

 

A. Without knowing anything else, we would have to say the best website solution is First Cup Site Creator.

Building the site is the fun part everyone wants to rush to do.  The hard part for a nonprofit is the content, management, and budget questions.  It is these answers that need to be determined first, before you even buy your domain name (okay, a domain name is not very expensive, but you would be surprised how fast those renewal notices come in.)

Save yourself aggravation and answer these questions first:

1.  What is the objective of this website?  Is it one or all of these?

• Outreach to Clients
• Appeal to Donors (or a means for donors to "check out" your organization)
• Online donations (see bullet above)
• Communicate with supporters
• Communicate with members
• Online store to sell promotional items
• Education and dissemination of articles
• Promotion of organization
• Volunteer Recruitment

 

2.  WHO is authorizing the creation of the website and its maintenance?    

When a nonprofit contributes some nominal fee to website upkeep, it's a sign that the website is still "authorized" by its management.  If a webmaster or designer donates services to a nonprofit and the nonprofit really cannot make some small contribution to offset some costs, then the least they can do is to try to regularly thank the donor.   This is not the best answer.  Some of this depends on the mission of your nonprofit, its structure and its challenges.

We believe that Software-as-a-Service or SaaS is the best solution for nonprofits because it eliminates the burdens of hosting, resolves security and support issues, and ensures continuity as well as the best products available at the lowest cost.

 

3.  WHO is going to maintain the website and post changes? 

Will this person be a paid staffer?  A volunteer?  What happens when they rotate out of that position?

Case in point:  A very nice website was donated to a fraternal organization.  Years passed and everything went well.  Then the volunteer who had maintained the site moved out of the area.  But he was unable to train a suitable replacement volunteer.  When the nonprofit attempted to contact the web site host -- the person who had originally designed and established the website --they couldn't find him either. 

This went on for about 6 months with no website updates or maintenance.  For an organization that relied on having a site updated monthly, it was very discouraging.  Finally they sent out an urgent appeal.  They got a response and built a new site. If you are an organization receiving services, avoid the "single point of failure" scenario.

 

Q: Does my Nonprofit site need a big budget?

A:  Not with us.  You do not need a big budget for a great-looking website.  Most webmasters see hosting a nonprofit as a privilege.  There are some instances when they may actually need a high-end, pricey design and hosting platform (for example, they have lots and lots of archived information, they have a library, or they are a "Think Tank," a hospital, or in reality a very large and geographically distributed organization).  

 

Firstcupsite.com  is the best choice they can make.  We offer generous nonprofit and small proprietor discounts.

Question:  We have a need to make many sites that are of a similar, customized design.  Is there an easy way to do this?

Answer:  YES. Have us design your custom Master site.  Then for each "child" site, we can re-use that template and enter the information for each "child" site.  There are some additional fees for this, but it is the easiest and least expensive option available.

If you are going to create 5 child sites of small size, you can also simply copy one site 4 times.
But if you are going to make full-blown websites, or are going to make more than 5, then a template customization is more economical and the easiest option.