Web Design

The use of .org at the end of a website’s address has long been the accepted online shorthand to identify sites that are operated by nonprofits.

But now the key organization that manages nonprofit addresses wants charities to adopt the suffix .ngo. It also wants to implement a process that vets organizations to ensure that anybody with the .ngo address is a legitimate nonprofit, saying that now it’s too easy to commit fraud using a .org address because anyone can create one.

Until this summer, Compassion International had a Web site in need of a makeover. The Christian aid charity hadn’t redesigned the site since 2003.

Thanks to an update in June, the number of visits to the site has grown by 25 percent, traffic from search engines has risen 28 percent, and page views have increased 9 percent. The number of people who visit every section of the site has increased as much as 350 percent on some pages, and the average donation made by each visitor has increased by 55 percent.

The Norwegian Cancer Society's Beate Sorum shared her top 10 tips for digital fundraising success at IFC Holland last month.

As the world becomes more digital every day, online fundraising continues to grow in importance and volume. But it's unrealistic to expect donors to give online if you don't engage them first. That's the name of the game in e-philanthropy: engagement.

Writer-for-hire Rick Grant is back, and this time he untangles a fundraising website.

We might look at Borders and think that can never happen to our organizations — we’re far too savvy, right? But what are the lessons we can learn as nonprofits and fundraisers from this and other sad endings? Are our methods and technology threatening to make us the dinosaurs, while the Amazons of our sector plough ahead without us?

The Hope Institute's Jarid Brown shares five keys for fundraisers to get the most out of their nonprofit organizations' online experiences.

Clover co-founders Ben Rugg and Jim Elliston share their keys to ensure your website gives donors and visitors the best possible online experience.

Clover co-founders Ben Rugg and Jim Elliston share their keys to ensure your website gives donors and visitors the best possible online experience.

Today, every fundraiser understands that direct mail can't do it all. Any campaign needs the other channels, to some extent ... and ideally on the same page. And while the closely coordinated direct-mail and e-mail campaigns are both popular and successful today, perhaps the most effective demonstration of the offline-online marriage is a personalized URL (PURL) campaign.