Tag Archives: not-for-profit webmaster roundtable

How the NY Public Library Successfully Rolled Out Website Content Management

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At yesterday’s quarterly meeting of the Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table, we shared a particularly interesting discussion on website content management.  As group founder and leader David Milner pointed out, nonprofits spend considerable time and money to update a website, but not nearly as much effort to keep site content fresh and relevant.

Although there are many great open source content management systems available, I’ve noticed that it’s still a challenge for many nonprofits to decentralize the process of updating website content at our organizations.  But at least one organization at our meeting has figured out how to do it right.  Michelle Misner, Digital Project Manager at the NY Public Library, kindly shared her experience with us yesterday in rolling out Drupal which “revolutionalized” how their website is maintained.  How did they do it?

  1. Setup extensive training both during rollout and on an ongoing basis to familiarize staff with the new software
  2. Recruited senior management to spearhead the process, including the modification of staff roles to include responsibility for website content updates
  3. Using permissions, user rights and specific Drupal content types, entrusted staff with responsibility for specific areas of the website and chose not to use an intricate approval process.  Instead, there is a staff person who monitors site updates.
  4. Encouraged in-house developer to learn Drupal to maintain the system instead of having to continue to rely on the outside firm which assisted with the implementation.

We also took a look at how to optimize web content for specific contents, such as the Boston Globe‘s impressive use of responsive design,  shared tips for getting the most from Google AdWords and debated the latest Facebook news feed updates.

Thanks to David for having kept our group active for several years and to Michelle for sharing her story about how we can better manage content for our websites.  Quoting David, paying attention to your website could make the difference between your organization receiving an online donation, attracting a volunteer – or not.

7 Tips to Implement a Successful Fall ePhilanthropy Campaign

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Sadly, Labor Day is followed by fall with shorter days and cooler weather.  But it also provides an opportunity to reconnect with your constituents, climaxed by the important year-end fundraising campaign.  Here are some ways to hit the ground running when you return to the office tomorrow:

  1. Prepare an integrated communications / fundraising calendar describing how you will engage with your supporters across channels.  Balance appeals with messages showing how your organization has helped your target audience and be specific about you’ve utilized past donations.
  2. Start planning content for email campaigns well in advance, using these 7 tips for better fundraising emails and applying these best practices for enewsletters - they apply just as much for nonprofits as for small businesses (More ideas here)
  3. Take the time to analyze data on email subscribers, website traffic, Facebook ‘likers,’ Twitter followers etc. so you better understand what platforms your constituents are engaging with you
  4. Is your website consistently providing fresh content that is in synch with your other communication media?  If not, have you provided ongoing training to staff on how to utilize your content management software?  (What?  You don’t have a CMS.  Read Idealware’s Five Tips for A Successful Open Source CMS Project on a Budget)
  5. Find a few simple ways to start thinking multi-channel, even if it means changing the way your nonprofit usually works.  Get ideas from Frogloop’s  Multichannel Magic, then read about others’ successes in this month’s upcoming nonprofit blog carnival hosted by Big Duck featuring this topic
  6. Get out of your office.  If you’re in NYC, for example, you can learn how to innovate and thrive in the digital age at this month’s 501 Tech NYC event and discuss what makes successful websites at the Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table.  (You can also learn from your desk by taking a webinar during you lunch hour.)
  7. Optimize your online giving forms, paying particular attention to whether they work as well on mobile and tablet platforms, where more of your constituents are seeing them.
Congratulations once again to Charity:Water, which has kicked off its September campaign as another example of how to do ephilanthropy right with stirring video and constantly providing feedback on how it uses donations towards its mission of providing clean water worldwide .

What Nonprofit Webmasters Talk About

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This week I attended the quarterly get together of the Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table, chaired by long time leader David Milner.  As usual, discussion was lively covering topics such as:

  • Google Analytics – use scheduled reports often to get colleagues to look at data but make sure they understand some of the basic terms – e.g. page views, visits etc.
  • Surviving a website redesign – David suggested an ‘outside in’ approach to consider what site visitors are looking for rather than ‘inside out’ – where you spend most of your time getting feedback from others in your organization.  Another interesting point – when selecting a developer, remember that the firm that creates the design doesn’t necessarily have to implement it.
  • Content management systems – While CMS products offer the potential of allowing staff through a nonprofit to update web content, many of us have had mixed success in actually achieving that goal.  Bill Swersey of the Asia Society (thanks for hosting the meeting) showed us a wiki which includes an internal style guide as well as tips on how to create online content.  Another idea mentioned was to revise job descriptions to include responsibility for website updates
  • Donate now – Is it really important to put a prominent button throughout your website?   My take – you want to make sure that those who are ready to contribute can do so easily – and can get through the process without having to fill out a lot of information – and are not distracted by extraneous links to other website pages
  • Facebook ads – Bill commented on the amazing targeting capability available within Facebook so your ad can display to a very selective audience

If you’re in New York, please join the conversation at the next meeting in December.  If not, consider joining our LinkedIn group.

Using Social Networking Sites to Attract Constituents

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At the quarterly Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table meeting this week, I initiated a discussion on social networking, stimulated by Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal article, A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy. In addition to the popular MySpace and Facebook sites, the article mentioned many new ways in which our supporters are finding to raise money for their favorite causes.

David Milner, who has run the webmaster group for several years, raised an interesting question.  If pages are created on these new sites and successfully generate interest in the organization, this will hopefully increase traffic to the nonprofit’s main web site.  But if the nonprofit maintains the MySpace and Facebook sites while neglecting its own web site, how will this come across to the constituent?  I also asked – how does the nonprofit decide which content to put on these sites while making sure there is consistency with its own web site?

The social networking sites present an interesting opportunity for us to engage a new audience.  It is likely that visitors will seek out an organization on these new networks before visiting an organization’s main web site.  So we’ll need to make sure that our nonprofits have a presence on these new sites while also keeping our own web sites fresh.  This will be a challenge, but it’s easier to go where our constituents are than hope that they’ll find our organization web sites.

In addition to MySpace Impact and Facebook’s Causes, other sites mentioned in the article that are attracting interest especially among younger constituents include Change.org, DoSomething, Firstgiving, GiveMeaning, Kiva and SixDegrees.

Not-for-Profit Webmaster Roundtable

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This week I attended the quarterly meeting of Not-For-Profit Webmaster Roundtable, which has been run successfully by David Milner for several years.  We discussed the arrival of super fast Internet connectivity through services such as Verizon Fios and how this will affect how nonprofit web sites are developed,

At least one organization represented at the meeting, the Rainforest Alliance, is already taking steps towards adding video to its web site, although it has not yet allowed constituents to submit their own videos.  With the amazing popularity of YouTube and other video sharing sites, it seems that it is only a matter of time until videos are widely available on nonprofit sites.

We also discussed content management systems, an area which commonly comes up for debate.  I suggested that organizations first determine who is likely to handle content updates, and then select a product which matches these users’ expertise.  My preference is usually towards packages that are easy to use even if they lack all the bells and whistles of more advanced offerings.

Other topics: how to best implement organizational blogs (make sure they are updated frequently), web statistics (Google Analytics new version is reported to be very nice, and it’s still free) and the availability of tools such as Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer to find out what pages on your web site are currently indexed.