Strategic Online Communications for Nonprofits

Posts Tagged ‘strategic online communication’

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!

You’ve probably heard about charities raising millions of dollars through online campaigns, mobile giving, or Facebook, but to many nonprofit organizations these tools are still a mystery– besides, how can you invest time in them when you’re already working more than 50 hours a week?

In this workshop we’ll explore some of the powerful tools and strategies available to nonprofits and how they can help you raise money, expand your impact, AND even save you time! We’ll present the key components of a comprehensive and integrated online strategy, how they fit together, and which tools might even be a good fit for your organization.

Workshop Details

When: April 8, 2010  10am-12pm

Where: Pueblo City-County Library, 4th Floor / 100 East Abriendo Avenue / Pueblo, Colorado

Registration: At the door– $20 participation fee