How Small Charities Can Make Web Sites Click With Supporters

In an age of social networks and mobile giving, it may seem old-fashioned and unnecessary for a charity to work on improving the look and feel of its Web site. But think again.

“It’s your home base,” says Jocelyn Harmon, director of nonprofit services at Care2.com, an online community that seeks to promote health, civil rights, and environmental causes. And for some organizations, it may be a better investment of online resources than social networks—which, she says, have yet to bring in enough revenue from supporters to justify their hype.

Even though Web sites are key to charities’ ability to spread the word about their mission, connect clients to services, and raise money, many portals are clunky, confusing, out of date, and downright ugly, says Ms. Harmon. A lack of resources, and a general tendency by nonprofit leaders to undervalue the importance of marketing explain the dearth of high-quality Web sites, especially among small organizations, says Ms. Harmon. But by making smart choices—getting skilled volunteers to provide high-quality photos, for instance, or choosing a content-management system that allows users without significant technology skills to update a site on the fly—even a small, grass-roots charity can leave a big impression on the Web.

Online giving remains a small portion of most charities’ overall fund raising, according to studies. And even a great Web site won’t instantly turn into a fund-raising machine, especially for smaller groups, warns Dorothy Echodu, a top official at Pilgrim, a humanitarian Christian group in Seattle that works in Africa. “One of the fantasies people might have about Web-site design is that strangers are going to jump onto your Web site and be so moved by it that they instantly donate,” she says.

But Web sites are crucial in ways that may not be readily apparent, says Mary A. Gross, technology services director at Nonprofit Management Solutions, a San Diego nonprofit group. “To do fund raising these days, you need a good Web site, whether you’re doing fund raising online or not,” she says. The primary role of any site, she says, “is to educate the visitor about who we are, what we do, and why we’re of value to our community.”

In tough times, the Web’s role in raising awareness of causes and helping charities extend their reach is especially important, Ms. Gross says. Organizations’ reach “has always been minimal and is getting smaller, because people don’t have the staff they used to.”

Following are suggestions from experts about how charities can build more inviting Web sites.

Don’t get wordy

Too much text can overwhelm visitors, says Alice Luu, director of operations and strategy at Grassroots.org, which helps other small nonprofit groups build a Web presence. “Sometimes I see organizations putting everything about their programs right on that front page,” she says, but that can turn off visitors and prevent them from spending sufficient time with the site. Link to more detailed information about programs and their results from the home page to additional pages.

Show, don’t tell

Photos are better than words at forging an emotional connection with supporters and potential supporters, notes Paul Moment, who designed Pilgrim’s Web site. “If you can convey that emotion powerfully, then you’re going to have better luck at constituent engagement and fund raising,” he says.

The site, which went live about six months ago, features professional-level photography acquired “almost for free” from a supporter, says Ms. Echodu, and ample video of the charity’s work overseas.

One more tip: no cellphone snapshots, which are usually low resolution and unprofessional-looking.

Highlight priorities

The tabs at the top of the home page should show the charity’s top priorities, says Ms. Luu, such as explaining the cause, raising money, or recruiting volunteers. Also, figure out which audience is most important for the Web site to reach and don’t include information that’s irrelevant to that audience, says Ms. Gross. For instance, many charities, she says, “may put up information that’s appropriate for the client, but the client is not likely to visit the Web site.”

Focus on the problem

On the home page, “you should be saying what your cause is and what you hope to accomplish—not what you’ve done, and patting yourself on the back,” says Dennis Kitchen, founder of Getting Tools to City Schools. In the middle of his group’s home page is the no-frills message, “Your dollars will give free basic school supplies to low-income kids in New York City public schools.” A bright-yellow “Donate Now!” button sits just beneath that plea. The year-old volunteer-run Brooklyn, N.Y., charity is on track to raise $30,000 in cash and $20,000 worth of donated supplies this year, says Mr. Kitchen.

Solicit help

A “donate” button by itself isn’t enough. “You need to make the ‘ask,’” says Ms. Gross. “You need to call your donors to action. The concepts of fund raising that apply in person also apply on the Web.”

Make giving easy

Put a donation button in a prominent place in a color that will stand out against the background, says Marc Lee, president of Affinity Resources, an online fund-raising consulting firm in Denver. Don’t link the “donate” button to a wordy page that spells out the various giving options, he says, but keep things simple. For best results, he says, link that button to a page that asks first for an amount, and ultimately for credit-card data.

Be transparent

Donors and prospective donors may want to see financial reports about the charity; those documents can be linked from the organization’s “about us” page.

Some groups also list the states in which they are registered to raise money, as a further reassurance to supporters and symbol of credibility, says Mr. Lee.

Bring others in

Include shareable content, suggests Ms. Luu, so that supporters can easily pass along your message.

Stay current

An easy-to-use content-management system that enables an organization to make changes quickly—upload new photos, report news, and create new “landing pages”—is essential, says Ms. Harmon. A charity that doesn’t have a lot of time available for updating its site can benefit from creating an “editorial calendar,” setting aside a time, perhaps monthly, when a staff member or volunteer can check the site, changing outdated information, making sure links aren’t broken, cleaning up typographical errors. And keep in mind that uploading new photos is an easy way to freshen up an entire page, says Ms. Gross.

Greet the press

Make it easy for news-media outlets to contact the charity. Include contact information for a designated media-relations representative, says Ms. Gross.

Easily downloadable, high-resolution photos of the charity’s programs and top leaders also make it easier to get news coverage. (Maintaining a Flickr site, for instance, makes access to quality photos simple for outsiders.)

Keep the archive of news coverage current. List facts about the charity that reporters are likely to ask frequently, such as the number of clients it serves annually.

Meet the public

Linking to a list of the charity’s leaders, says Ms. Harmon, “signals to people that you’re an open and transparent organization. You want to invite engagement, right? Or else, why are you a nonprofit?”

If employees’ e-mail addresses are included with their contact information, they can be coded so that they’re less likely to attract spam, says Mr. Lee. Charity: Water, a New York organization that supports clean-water projects in the developing world, includes staff members’ Twitter handles on its staff page and simply lists a general e-mail address for outsiders to contact the group. The choice helps add “personality” to the organization, yet allows its workers to avoid being deluged, says Viktoria Harrison, the group’s director of design and branding.

Create a network

If the organization is on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks, link to those pages from the home page.

Give Google hints

Search-engine optimization—small tweaks to a Web site’s coding—can make it easier for users to find it. One common problem Ms. Gross sees often that optimization can easily take care of: failure to tag photos with words, such as a charity’s name and city, that Google and other search engines will more easily recognize. A skilled volunteer, she says, can often handle optimization coding.

Tips for Journalist-Friendly Web Sites

In the course of covering the nonprofit world, The Chronicle’s staff members look at hundreds of charity Web sites each month. Here are their suggestions for how best to make a site appealing and helpful for journalists:

What to do:

• Create a section specifically for journalists, and mark it clearly.
• Include a name, a phone number, and e-mail address for the person or persons responsible for handling news-media requests.
• Make attractive, high-resolution photos of the charity’s programs and leaders available for download.
• Include any photo-credit and caption information with the photos.
• Start a Flickr site and post the photos there, to make the photos easy to download. Link to the site, and keep it updated with new images.
• Post a fact sheet about the charity, including such data as when the group was founded, the number of affiliates it has, and the number of clients served annually.
• Link to the organization’s most recent financial reports, Form 990 informational tax returns, and annual reports.

What not to do:

• Offer only a generic “info@” e-mail address as a contact, unless someone at the charity monitors that mailbox at least once daily.
• Include broken links to previous news articles or video reports.
• Include outdated press releases, such as information about long-ago galas or personnel moves.
• Include cell-phone photos.
• Include photos of anyone holding a giant check.