Web Design

Is your nonprofit interested in email-friendly goals such as raising money; advocating on a local, state or national level; increasing attendance at your events; recruiting volunteers; and sharing news and resources about your nonprofit's mission? If so, take these three steps to turn your organization’s website into an email-capturing machine: Ask in all the right places, make your content desirable and create a beautiful frame.

Christine Schaefer, VP of community and marketing at Salsa Labs, tackles nonprofit donation page design and explains why and how a small to midsize business e-commerce strategy can be applied to nonprofit donation page design for higher completion rate.

It’s annual report season — and awards season! What better time to get inspired by nonprofits that are publishing exemplary online annual reports? These organizations show the powerful results you can get when you revamp your annual report process. Here are some noteworthy online annual reports in five categories:

• Best Donation Generator — charity: water
• Best Messengers — Girls Inc.
• Best Year's Highlights — Kiva
• Best Bold Move to Digital — Salvation Army
• Best E-Book — Michael J. Fox Foundation

The unfortunate bottom line is no one will read your great offer on your stunning landing page if it isn’t relevant. And, it can’t convert if people don’t read it. That’s why you need to write your landing page with all three types of viewers in mind — readers, scanners and bottom feeders.

You can optimize your landing page to appeal to each type of reader by looking at the behavioral psychology of different viewers and how they consume information on the Web.

The most meaningful information you have to share should be at the forefront of your website with options for next steps. Giving your visitor too many links, too many choices or too much information divides their attention and detracts from the bare essence of what you are trying to achieve. You’ve got to make it easy for them.

Google got it Right! Google. Now, this is a website we all can relate to. But imagine this … What if Google were a nonprofit? Here’s what its homepage could look like.

If your organization’s messages aren’t getting read, your constituents aren’t engaging. And if they aren’t engaging, they probably aren’t donating. Our quick check of nonprofit emails in our inboxes suggests that the vast majority are not mobile-friendly.

Kivi Leroux Miller, president of Nonprofit Marketing Guide and keynote speaker at the second annual Engage Conference, provided "3 Steps to Friendlier Fundraising Websites" in the January issue of FundRaising Success.

When you’re designing a new nonprofit website, there are a ton of things to think about. What do you want the website to do? What should it look like? Who’ll be involved in the project? How will you drive the right people to the site? But before getting into the details of your new website, it’s important to answer one key question: Who are you targeting with the new site?

This all-important question has implications for many facets of your project.

The easiest way to ensure that your website and blog are mobile-compatible is to embrace responsive design. Here is a selection of 11 exceptional, responsively designed nonprofit websites. Pay particular attention to Heifer International. Its new site is gorgeous. Hopefully, your nonprofit has a new website on your to-do list for 2014-15, and you can study and learn from the websites listed below.

Donation pages continue to be a central part of nonprofit website design. If you’ve succeeded in making strong calls to action that guide website visitors to your donate page, you should reward them with a compelling and easy-to-use donation experience. In this post, I’ve collected a few impressive donation pages to show you. I’ll walk through the first three in more detail and point out a few things that they’re doing right.