25 Nonprofit Website Musts

By Kevin Lee

Qualities of a Strong Nonprofit Website

Himanshu Sareen, founder and CEO of website, apps and software platform builder Icreon Tech, knows a thing or two about nonprofit website design, and he emphasizes that every nonprofit must have the information and experiences donors expect to see on a website. Here’s his checklist of qualities of a strong nonprofit website:

Flexible for the future
Responsive Web design — ensures an optimized experience for visitors looking on any device, including a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, TV. Make sure the content is easily viewable, Sareen says, not just a scaled-down version of your original website a la 2004-05.
Strong CMS — a reliable, easy-to-use content management system (CMS) is vital to allow marketing, fundraising and business development to manage basically anything without the need for IT or technical support to get involved. It gives the nonprofit flexibility to update the site quickly.
Connected and personalized — you want to be able to connect the content or pages you direct a visitor to to the visitor’s preferences to provide a more personalized feel. That can be through a login portal or having coding to include a donor’s giving history, Sareen says.
Clear calls to action — whatever it is you want a visitor to do, your website must clearly state that. Whether it’s finding new information, viewing photos, donating, signing up for an event, signing petition, etc., clear calls to action are a must if you want to steer donors on the proper online journey.
Simple form — don’t force someone to put payment information in twice or ask for unnecessary information. Also make sure your website can save payment and address information to allow repeat donors a quicker, easier path to a donation. It also helps if your site can autopopulate things like ZIP code or city and state based on information the donor inputs, Sareen says.

To best serve your multiple constituencies (and yield the maximum number of actions that you desire, including donations, subscriptions or other positive conversion action), it's vital that your site functions as more than a simple online brochure. While such an approach might have worked in 1999 (and perhaps even in 2009), today's users expect more, and the cost of disappointment (both to current and potential future relationships) is much higher.

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