Strategic Online Communications for Nonprofits

Posts Tagged ‘nonprofit’

I recently came across an excellent analysis & recommendations on the Google Conversion Room Blog.

These recommendations are just as relevant to nonprofits as they are to anyone else, and offer a great checklist to review your own website against.

There is a clear trend in web design toward less cluttered, more open and clean-looking websites, based on recent study results on readability and taking action.

In a nutshell, people skim websites, and take just a few seconds to decide whether to stay and navigate through a website, or whether to go somewhere else.  If your site is too cluttered and too difficult to decode, you run the risk of losing your visitor who simply doesn’t want to take the time figuring it out.  You also run a greater risk– of alienating someone who genuinely wants to help out your organization, but can’t easily figure out how to donate, volunteer, or get involved in some other way.  If you make it too difficult they get discouraged and leave.

The tips offered by Google basically boil down to the following for nonprofits:

1. Use large, prominent call to action buttons
2. Visually support the calls to action with your design
3. Clearly communicate the benefits of taking action
4. Eliminate clutter that competes with your call to action
5. Clearly prioritize the calls to action for your visitor
6. Repeat your call to action
7. Test usability and make it as easy as possible to take action

Read the full article to learn more!

Posted by Elizabeth Beachy, Upleaf Co-Founder

Full day workshop to be held at the Rawlings Public Library in Pueblo, Colorado from 9:30am to 4:30pm.

This workshop is designed to help participants envision and plan realistic online strategies to increase fundraising and better engage constituencies. The full-day workshop will cover new technologies, lessons learned and best practices in online communication and fundraising, and a series of exercises tailored to the needs of workshop participants. Participants should emerge from the workshop with the foundation for an online communications plan to increase their nonprofit organization’s impact and revenues, grounded in their specific needs and available resources.

Topics to be covered include:

· Website Strategy – Messages that make or break your site

· Constituent Relationship Management Systems – Making the most of your pool of contacts

· Reaching Out – Using social media and online marketing tools to attract and engage constituencies

· Online Fundraising – The strategy that supports your online giving page

Presented by Elizabeth Beachy and Osvaldo Gomez, of Upleaf LLC. Upleaf is an Albuquerque-based consulting firm dedicated to empowering nonprofits to increase their impact through strategic online communications.

Register Now!

Donors love to ask the question, “What is your cost per beneficiary?“  It’s a great way for them to compare potential grantees working within the same field, and can be a good proxy of an organization’s efficiency.

Now nonprofit organizations can reach more people and decrease their cost per beneficiary thanks to online communities.  Here’s how:

1. Create an online support group. This can be a tremendously powerful tool for organizations that work with populations who are stigmatized, in danger, or dealing with addictions.  It offers built-in confidentiality (participants can select any screen names), safety (no need to leave home), and support from peers who are facing similar issues.

The organization can moderate discussions and screen for abuses, but by and large this strategy requires little time investment from the sponsoring agency as the value is found in interaction with people with shared experiences.  Online support groups have been effective for reaching:

• Victims of domestic violence
• People diagnosed with potentially terminal illness like cancer or HIV
• Smokers seeking to quit
• People with certain types of mental illness

An online support group would usually be custom-built, and hosted within the organization’s website.  It should be built to include an administrative function (someone who can delete or block inappropriate comments, offer advice, and monitor traffic and trending topics), and if necessary, password-protected areas for users.  A great way to launch an online support group is to simply move existing support groups online, and offer some initial incentives for beneficiaries to participate.  From then on it will likely take wings and grow on its own.

2. Move peer education networks online. Peer education is a powerful strategy for behavior change.  As more youth interact with their peers online, traditional interpersonal communication strategies must follow suit. As they do, the cost per beneficiary can drop tremendously.  Peer educators can use their Facebook or MySpace accounts to share their thoughts about key topics with peers, email and SMS text messaging to have confidential conversations, and YouTube to share creative and motivational messages.  The cost of these tools is next to nothing– and they can reach many more youth than traditional door-to-door or face-to-face models. The impact on behavior may even be similar to traditional models, because youth are now so comfortable interacting in these ways.

3. Build interactive online forums for discussion. If your organization’s work relates to civil rights, political issues or advocacy, interactive online forums are a great way to get people involved with your cause and motivated toward action. You could develop a dedicated discussion forum, or simply create dynamic content (allow the public to contribute to your blog or citizen news sections) and encourage people to comment on what they read. By getting people involved with your issues through genuine two-way (or multi-directional) communication, they are more likely to become loyal activists or followers– measures valued by your donors.

In short there are many tools nonprofits can use to build community online, and by doing so decrease the ratio of staff to beneficiaries and cost per beneficiary.  Most beneficiaries are seeking community anyway, not just advice from professionals.

Community is what keeps people coming back– it builds loyalty, creates a sense of belonging, reinforces positive social norms, and ultimately helps create lasting impact on the lives of beneficiaries.

Posted by Elizabeth Beachy, Upleaf Co-Founder