9 Tips to Rewrite Your Website to Engage and Inspire Donors

In today's technology-driven world, it's crucial for fundraisers to get the most out of their websites. During their presentation at the 2010 Bridge Conference held July 26-28 in National Harbor, Md., Tucker Ball, director of online marketing at National Partnership for Women & Families; Kat Powers, online marketing manager at Conservation International; Dolores McDonagh, vice president of membership at National Trust for Historic Preservation; and Jessica Hood, director of consulting at Charity Dynamics provided nine tips to rewrite your website.

Here are those nine tips from the presentation, "What's the Good Word? Re-write Your Website to Engage and Inspire Supporters."

1. Know your audience and condition the content for it.
2. Strengthen your brand: create a voice, humanize the staff and issues — campaigns can be the doorway to a new voice and/or new audience.
3. Profile users to understand what matters to them.
4. Start all message development by considering the questions: Why would people on our list care? What would they want to hear?
5. Use personal stories — they go a long way.
6. Work smarter, not harder — publish content in one place and dispense to multiple locations.
7. Lead the way with examples when you ask someone to take action.
8. Allow your constituents to talk back to you and to each other.
9. Close the loop when you ask for support; let your constituents know what happened.