Download this version as a PDF with my notes from the August 2013 ESCHouston Seminar where I talked about how to get started with the technology foundations for a successful nonprofit fundraising website.
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Evaluate and Update Your Website to Increase Online Donations Today! Turn Your NonProfit Website into a Fundraising Machine! 1 This presentation has been prepared for the ESCHouston.org 2013 Workshop Series. Find additional nonprofit training classes as well as mentors, resources, and other support for new and growing nonprofit organizations on ESCHouston’s website: http://eschouston.org . Title: What Every Nonprofit Website needs for effective online fundraising | Factors every nonprofit website needs Description: This seminar will explain the key elements that nonprofit and association websites should include to attract new donors and increase online fundraising efforts. Copyright 2013 Sarah M Worthy, please include a credit to the author (Sarah M Worthy) with a link to http://sarahmworthy.com in any distributions (whole or part) and please do Share this if you find it valuable!
Transcript
Evaluate and Update Your Website to Increase Online Donations Today!
Turn Your NonProfit Website into a Fundraising Machine!
1This presentation has been prepared for the ESCHouston.org 2013 Workshop Series. Find additional nonprofit training classes as well as mentors, resources, and other support for new and growing nonprofit organizations on ESCHouston’s website: http://eschouston.org.
Title: What Every Nonprofit Website needs for effective online fundraising | Factors every nonprofit website needs
Description: This seminar will explain the key elements that nonprofit and association websites should include to attract new donors and increase online fundraising efforts.
Copyright 2013 Sarah M Worthy, please include a credit to the author (Sarah M Worthy) with a link to http://sarahmworthy.com in any distributions (whole or part) and please do Share this if you find it valuable!
"For me, it's not the technology, it's the people and their behaviour.
Technology is not necessarily going to help to fundraise. It's going to
remove the barriers to fundraising."
~ Laila Takeh, head of digital engagement at Unicef
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I want to really focus on the helping you each identify the purpose of your website, and show you how to think about designing a website with your donors’ in mind rather than getting muddled by the “high-tech” jargon.
Your website removes the barriers to giving by:*providing credibility*communicating to visitors what to do, why to do it and how to do it*providing the tools (online payments, donation forms, social integration) for donors to donate online
3about me: I like to say I “work and play on the web” and I’ve been living online since before most people were aware there was an Internet.
I have worked with numerous nonprofits and small businesses to help them identify technology gaps in their organizations and provide strategic guidance to help with implementations, upgrades, and training.
Currently I’m working on a Houston Healthcare IT startup to help them develop their prototype and a strategy for engaging healthcare professionals to promote user adoption to their app.
What’s the deal with Experience officer? Well, at my core, I’m a technology integrator with a lot of experience in marketing. I’m passionate about creating experiences for my clients and community members - both online and offline, and while there’s no such thing, in my humble opinion, as “seamless” integration, there’s certainly some great strategies for getting close.
I like to delight and surprise people when they interact with one of the Brands I’m supporting and I know how to do that with the latest technologies.
Low-Tech/Low-Cost Tools
Stay focused on your Goals
How’s Your Current Website?
Getting Higher-Tech Help
Second
Last
First
Third
4who here has a website? who is here because you’re preparing to setup your first NPO website?
Most nonprofits have the same concerns and challenges with their websites - this seminar aims to teach you how to look at your website from a new perspective to help you increase your online fundraising. No programming or high-tech skills are required to implement my recommendations. All you need is passion and a desire to learn and share!
3 Questions - 7 Seconds
What can I do here?
Why should I do it?
How do I get started?
5Try and imagine yourself being in your potential donors’ “shoes” and take a look at your website - if visitors can’t answer these 3 questions within about 7 seconds of arriving at your website, they’ll quickly leave and continue to explore the internet.
We’re going to do a little example - I’m going to show you a website homepage from ESCHouston, and I’m going to count to 7 then we’ll see if you all could answer these questions... Ready?
What can you do? | Why should you do it? | How do you get started?
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ESCHouston’s website does a great job - They have testimonials with people’s photos to share who’s involved - this adds credibility and communicates “Why” to visitors
They have the title list above the fold that shows they have consulting services, how to start a nonprofit (get started hint hint!) and current events (what can you do) - this is a great example of how important clear and straightforward Headers and Calls to Action are, because even though most of the descriptions for these 3 items are below the fold, the Headers in blue are easy to understand.
Another “Why” is their headline - and a great headline is going to speak to the “Why” of your visitors - in this case ESCHouston wants nonprofits and those who support nonprofits to join ESCHouston in helping nonprofits accomplish their missions.
DIY Quick Website Fixes
Craft Stories that Build Credibility
Match Your Website to Your Brand
Guide Your Visitors Online
Freshen Up Donations
Share Things that Matter
7Reference checklist in their handout package with tips to evaluate their own website, if anyone wants to volunteer their site for evaluation - we can do that at the end
"The most important thing you can do to improve your web site is eliminate unnecessary design items." ~ I can’t recall where I saw that quote and I apologize for not crediting that person here - it’s a great quote though when you are beginning a website project, whether it’s a redesign or a brand new site - eliminate things more than add things for greater success!
I’m going to share some quick tips and explain why these 5 factors matter most for your website’s fundraising capabilities* content* Brand design “look and feel” * navigation and calls to action* donation forms * make your website more share-able
Focus on Your Stories...
Free Report from http://credibility.stanford.edu/
8This study basically demonstrates that a nonprofit’s website needs to look about as good as Credibility is your biggest challenge as a NonProfit Organization - so when I talk about Branding and professional look/design - I want you to know that you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a custom website design. You need to focus on your messaging, your testimonials and case studies and have real photos (not stock photos of real people) and videos that show your staff, volunteers, and the people who you’ve helped thanks to the donations you receive.
From a Stanford University Study: the level of suspicion for nonprofit websites is far above that of any other type - 22.6% for NPO’s vs 9.4% overallThings that build credibility: * affiliations with recognizable organizations and corporations (partner with larger/more recognizable Brands to help boost yours) * who’s behind the site? Staff, Board Members, and the People who are involved with your organization should be prominently displayed
Who Benefits from Their Donation?
Content that Builds Credibility
How You’ll Use Their Donation?
Who’s Spending Their Donation?
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Answer these three questions for visitors first to build credibility - think about when you’ve donated in the past... you probably wanted to believe your money was going to be used the way you intended. Show them before they have to ask where their donations are going.
* Staff and Board members bios - remember to include current photos! (http://upglobal.co)* How does your nonprofit spend donation contributions? Showing potential donors where their money will be spent builds trust. (http://www.komen-houston.org/where-your-donations-go/) * Who benefits from your organization’s work? Show the people you help and the Good you do. (http://campforall.org)
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Content that’s Visual
10Tips for sharing visual content: 1) Share videos on Pinterest 2) Feature your clients, members, and partners/sponsors 3) Share your favorite resource (training videos from YouTube, favorite books)4) Share upcoming events and photos from past events 5) Infographics related to your industry, or make your own
Another important factor that builds credibility and much more is the design of your website. It should be professional looking and match your Brand. You also want your internal pages to match your home page
Don’t confuse first time visitors - unify your online brand across all of your website pages and social media profiles
This is an example of what not do (sorry kinfolk - I’m sure you’re a great organization!) When I started, I was on the kinfolk’s brown/beige website with a cute foodie theme. I click to donate on the “Melbourne” link and end up on a completely different looking site. There’s no mention of Kinfolk, and remember that 7second rule? Once you’ve changed the design, you start all over having to answer 3 questions in 7 seconds or you’ll lose that potential donor.
Design Your Social Brand, Too!
http://missionaustralia.com.au maintains their Brand across the web!
12Here’s a great example where the nonprofit org, Mission Australia, has a unified Brand across their website and across their social networks. Notice the similar color schemes, the logo matches all of the platforms, and their donation form page maintains the same look and feel too. People like familiarity and they TRUST it.
This is especially important for attracting the Gen Y/Millenials. They may find you via search or via social to find your website - and typically the younger generation will look at your social media profiles and if your Social Media channels don’t fit with what the visitor was expecting, they’ll click away and not return to your website.
Make Time for Daily SEO...
More than 70% of this NonProfit’s website traffic came from people
Searching Online for something to do that weekend.
Use your site’s analytics to identify the content
that’s drawing new visitors in best!
13I want to really stress that new nonprofits and organizations shouldn’t be putting all their time and energy into SEO. Develop content that’s relevant and interesting to your audience, consistently. Keep your homepage up-to-date.
That being said - it is important, and Google Analytics, in particularly, are vital to a successful long term digital marketing program.
Tip: Take 5 minutes every day to watch a tutorial or explore your own site’s Google Analytics’ dashboard to become familiar with the tools and the different ways you can measure your organization’s success and mistakes as you go.
Definitely set-up Google Analytics with your website and use it to monitor engagement, and make tweaks along the way. SEO takes a LONG time to build effective engagement so be patient, and just do it day by day.
Most people don’t usually relate search engine optimization with their website’s design - but your site’s design, both the images and styles you see as well as the backend - where meta tags and keywords are can dramatically improve your association’s rankings in search.
For most associations, your new donors find you via a search engine. Where do you rank on Google? Did you design SEO into your site’s design?
Your web analytics provide insights into your visitors’ interests and needs to help you come up with content ideas.
There’s a ton of data accessible to you about your audience within your google analytics
• Visitor Trends?• Top Traffic Sources?• Where do they go while on the site?• How long do they stay?• What content formats are most popular?• Do these patterns tell you anything about where your customers are in their buying process, or what content is most effective at the different stages of their
buying process?
RELATED IDEA: Use Google’s keyword suggest tool to better understand how prospects describe their challenges
Follow the Users Path
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this has been anonymized and is one of the nonprofits google analytics visitor path views.
I’ve highlighted Facebook - and show how a user goes through the website. These are really large numbers, not typical for some small/new sites.
Notice the path is from a landing page (although I’ve hidden the names, I can say each of these in the 1st “starting pages” list is from a landing page that was specifically shared from Facebook for tracking this.
Next we see the most frequented pages after the landing page/”homepage” for all intensive purposes.
Notice: events, about, and the actual homepage are the first three visited, and depending on which landing page, those next visits vary quite a lot.
You can use Google Analytics to really start to see patterns in how visitors are interacting with your website. Look for the pathway visitors typically take as they arrive all the way to when they convert/donate. Use these insights to better tailor your website to increase the desired behaviours.
5 Minute Navigation Tune-Up
15Take a look at your site's primary navigation links.
The left image is an example of a site navigation with unclear terms - it is difficult to tell that these are menu links, plus where does “strengthening” or “impacting” go to? These don’t clearly tell a visitor what to do.
Same with Net2 navigation, the site lacks a clear call to action for donations/sponsorships. However, the menu is clean and simple and the homepage does contain the “Join Netsquared” call to action - both in the nav and above the fold on the homepage.
Is the number of choices manageable or overwhelming? You don’t want to give your visitors too many menu options because people who are presented too many choices will usually decide to not act at all.
Quickly read though the navigation labels. Do the words make clear what your visitors will find when they click to the next page?
Do you have clear calls to action in your navigation for links to conversion pages?
Is it clear that your navigation links to other content?
www.hubspot.com/examples-of-effective-calls-to-action is a great whitepaper you can download that talks about how to craft calls to action. Go get it!
Value Your Donor’s Time
6 Pages of forms just to join?!
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I really love the Texas State Aquarium - if you haven’t visited them, you definitely should. They’re down in Corpus Christi Texas. The experience I’ve had at the Aquarium has always been wonderful for me and my family, and so I was surprised that I didn’t receive the same experience on their website.Don’t do this to people who want to participate in your organization. This site has members click through at least 6 different pages and forms before even asking for the credit card. That’s tedious and way too complicated. I’d rather stand in line at the park itself and join by filling out a paper application than do this process.
Streamline Your Online Forms
Only ask for the information you NEED... a newsletter subscribe form will require less information than an
online donation form.
17Collect as minimal info as possible, short forms generally have a higher submission rate than longer formsUse forms to collect the right information - what do you really need to know from a visitor on that form to accomplish your objectives?
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32079/How-Long-Should-Your-Landing-Page-Forms-Be.aspx - additional reference to optimizing landing pages and forms for lead generation
Is your donation process 100% tablet and
smartphone ready?
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I think this one slide is enough for this topic today, because this could become an entirely new seminar. Takeaway: If you can’t donate, join, register for an event, signup for a newsletter, or navigate your website from a tablet or smart phone, then you’re going to lose traffic rapidly.
Focus on the pages that allow visitors to interact and engage with you - convert donation landing pages, email newsletters, event registration pages, and contact forms to a mobile-optimized platform first.
Use analytics to see which pages are getting the most traffic from mobile and optimize those.
Then focus on making other pages mobile-optimized as you go.
Use Social Media Purposefully
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I’m a strong believer that your greatest success will come from bringing the people you connect with on social networks to your website where they can learn more and donate, join, volunteer, and share with their network.
Your content on social media should be more like an icebreaker that you use to start your conversation and find people who have things in common with you. This conversation can then be moved to your website later on. The reason you want to bring people to your website is because your website is where the transactions for donations and fees for things like events, memberships and other programs and services occurs.
Also, People come to your website to learn more about you and credibility is key. Potential donors want to know what your organization uses donations for, who is involved, and hear the stories of the people who are affected (positively) by your organization’s work. Social Networks don’t provide a space for you to truly provide all of this additional information, nor should it -
2 Free Social Integration Options
20Add a sharethis.com or addthis.com widget (or another one - I just like these 2 the best) to your blog or website
These are free - 5 great places to put them: 1) homepage2) event registration page3) blog posts/press releases, articles and news content 4) Photo albums and videos 5) donations/purchase “thank you” landing page **
Integrate your social media feeds with your website homepage
If we have time, I can demonstrate how to embed one of these on your website if anyone’s interested.
Increase Donor Engagement
• Engage Your Current Donors• Test, Measure, Retest your Donation process• Create a Sense of Community
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Tips to Increase Donor EngagementA. Start with your existing Donor/Contact ListWhy? Because it’s more expensive to market to new visitors than to market to existing members of your org * existing donors are more likely to donate again* existing donors can help you fundraise to attract new people - reach into their networks to find new friendsB. Test, Measure, and Retest your donations process* create a better user experience for donors* reduce time and difficulty to complete* reduce donor’s anxiety about the org’s credibility/effectiveness/page security
C. Create a Sense of Connection and Community: * invite them to volunteer - and give them a stepping stone guide to getting involved. Ask on the donation form if they’d like to learn more about volunteering (and memberships!) * Say Thanks! All the time, especially when asking them to donate again, when they share, when they refer * Encourage Donors to invite friends and family* Find ways to reward top donors/supporters through exclusive access to view and contribute to content on your website* Curate your community - they need attention, maintenance... * Measure engagementA great resource for learning more about Donor Engagement can be downloaded for Free at http://www.nten.org/research/2012-nonprofit-donor-engagement-study
These are all low-tech, “old-fashioned” ways of reaching out to your current fans and asking for them to help you grow your cause - make sure you’re asking with a gift in hand ready to thank them.
Remember, you’re inviting people to support your organization’s cause because you provide a valuable service to the local and global community. Ask for something in return for the work you do that’s a win-win for all sides.
Define Roles & Responsibilities for your members and donors that clearly outline how they can contribute, and give back to your organization for all the great work you do.
Make a Donation On Your Website
22most nonprofit websites make it 7% (or more) harder to donate online than to purchase something from an e-commerce site -people want to GIVE you money, and you make it harder on them? what’s the process for your nonprofit donation form? go online, donate $10 to your cause and more importantly, pay attention to the process is it more than 1 page/click to donate? how much personal information are you asking for and how much do you really need? how long does it take to complete? do they get a confirmation email? what does the page you go to after the donation is complete look like... how can you make that better?
Want more online donation tips? Check out my 2-part blog series I wrote: Make your nonprofit website a donor magnet: http://blog.tendenci.com/donor-magnet-part-one/http://blog.tendenci.com/donor-magnet-part-two/
CMS RecommendationsOpen Source CMS 30 Second Evaluation
over 61 million sites are built on WordPress, primarily a publishing platform
If you’re technical, Drupal can do just about anything, challenging for non-technical people to customize and manage
Specifically built for nonprofits, out of the box functionality, “new kid” on the open source block.
Great for largely content-focused websites, limited customizations and extended functionality.
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Most nonprofits will need a CMS unless you’re lucky to have a staff that consists of experienced programmers and web designers. Does everyone know what a CMS, aka a Content Management System is? Show of Hands and don’t feel like you should already know - most people don’t know what a CMS is. Even many engineers and people with technical jobs. A CMS is basically a pre-packaged software application that creates the website itself and has been designed to make it easier for non-technical people to make changes to their website. Most website software today have editors just like the ones your email and document software have. (ie Outlook, Word, Gmail, Google Docs) If you can create a powerpoint slide or draft a Word document, then you can add and edit content in a CMS because they pretty much have the same features and functions. There are some minor (and in some cases major) differences between platforms so try before you buy. Here’s a little more details and I’ll have a handout for you with a checklist to help you evaluate different CMS platforms and find the one that’s right for you. Open Source vs. Proprietary?Cons of O.S. --> it isn’t really free and comes with technical management requirements that someone has to be paid to do Cons of Proprietary --> you don’t own it, and you can’t take it with you (ie Common Ground example) Some Features Your CMS should include:
a) SEO capabilities b) Mobile Accessibility c) Content Collaboration tools - how easy is it to add content, how easy is it for others to add content?d) Community management e) personalization (can it be customized to match your brand? f) social media integrationg) ability to export/import data h) events - calendar and online registration toolsi) membership managementj) donation managementk) payment integrationl) reporting tools
If you’re interested in learning how to set-up a Tendenci website on your own, to self-host, then let me know and I’m happy to donate some time showing you how. I also highly recommend Schipul.com if you’re looking for a more customized and managed hosting for Tendenci.
Digital ToolsGraphics/Images
Editorial Calendars
Email Marketing
Automation and Analytics
24some of my favorite website content management and content editorial calendar/management tools (I am not connected with any of them, in any way, other than I’ve had really great experiences with each of these tools and their companies.)
image editing/creation tools:http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.html - about $50 to purchase and I use it literally everyday at workhttp://www.aviary.com/ - photo editing tool, cool mobile functionality
bit.lyhttp://ifttt.com
email marketingcampaignmonitor.commailchimp.com
analytics tools - Google analytics
Collaboration and Editorial tools:excel/google docshttps://contently.comDivvy HQ
Social Media Management Tools
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tweetdeck, sprout social, engag.io - free tool that integrates with your gmail inbox and organizes your social network conversations lists - use lists to segment and customize your outgoing messages (Google+, twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) look at lists that you’re organization is listed on - who’s listing you? look at other people’s lists to find influencers and related people to follow and listen to addthis and sharethis give you tools to allow site visitors to share your content - use content from going out and doing interesting things, and writing about it, and get your members/fans to contribute (use hashtag wrap up from an event as a blog post to repurpose content etc)
In addition to ESCHouston, of course :)Here are some great, neutral organizations that provide Free training and resources for nonprofits looking for technology advice and recommendations.
Each of these organizations is a nonprofit dedicated to helping other nonprofits get a handle on technology. Use them and learn from them - they are my primary resources for learning all this nonprofit tech stuff!
Bringing in Outside Help
2880% of nonprofits outsource their website management. That’s why I’ve included handouts with questions for you to think about as you prepare to get quotes from website designers/developers/ and agencies.
You probably don’t recognize all three of these guys, but the one on the left is Ed Schipul, who originally created Tendenci. The one in the middle is Dries Buytaert, the developer of Drupal, and on the right is Matt Mullenweg, developer of WordPress.
You all have a great checklist in your folders with questions and tips to help you select your website firm. Things to highlight * volunteer / free work --> sounds too good to be true that someone will design your website for free? That’s because is usually is. The person means well, but their paying job and their families will often take priority over your website project, leaving you in the lurch. It’s worth it to pay to get the website live. After that, ask your supporters to volunteer by contributing content via sharing their stories about why they’re passionate about your nonprofit and why they participate to help you get more engaging content up.
* Important to consider what happens if you “break up”? Can you take everything with you - get your passwords, site data etc? Find the right firm that will let you walk out with your website data without a hassle so you don’t have to begin from scratch again.
Questions?
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Questions? Who wants to evaluate their website? Time to demo any of what I’ve talked about?
