Important Questions About Your Web Site

Nonprofits face increasing competition for support every day. Fortunately, the Internet offers unparalleled opportunities to better differentiate your organization, increase involvement and operate more efficiently. By leveraging the Internet to market your organization, you can build stronger relationships with your constituents — including donors, members, volunteers and employees — to better support your mission both now and in the future.

In general, your Web site should help you:

* Inform and engage your community of potential supporters;
* Build better relationships with your current supporters; and
* Increase your overall donations, event registrations and other types of participation.

Blackbaud recently conducted an assessment in an effort to help nonprofit organizations evaluate their current Internet marketing efforts. With more than 500 respondents, the questions were organized in four main sections:

1. Best Practices — ensuring that a Web site meets the expectations of its visitors and acts as an effective marketing vehicle for the organization.

2. Visit Value — taking a look at a Web site’s “sticky” properties, e.g., if it feels fresh and trustworthy, and offers information and experiences that make a return visit likely.

3. Constituent Relationship Management — making sure that the complete relationship a supporter has with an organization is acknowledged with every interaction, and that transactions can occur on- or offline with the same results.

4. Online Giving — evaluating the Web site’s ability to make the online giving experience as rich and personal as other methods of giving.

In this first look at the assessment, let’s explore the best practices section and look at how nonprofits are using, or not using, these principles.

QUESTION: Is your mission statement clearly stated on your Web site?
RESPONSES: Yes: 85 percent. No: 15 percent.

If your mission statement isn’t listed, is a clear and concise explanation of who you are and what you do easy to find? The best way to attract support is to make what you stand for apparent and then market yourself to people who have an affinity for your mission.