How Important is a Nonprofit's Website?
When was the last time you updated your nonprofit’s website? It may seem like a big task with all the moving parts included in your workday, but we promise it’s important.
If done right, a nonprofit’s website plays a vital role in the nonprofit’s day-to-day and actually aids in your “juggling act” of tasks.
A solid website helps answer consumer questions, helps visitors understand and connect with your organization’s mission and vision, and leads guests to take the next steps with your organization. Without the ability to push people to your website, team members must fill these holes.
Updating, utilizing, and creating a worthwhile space online for your organization is important and we’re here to help you understand why. If you haven’t updated your nonprofit’s website in a while, we hope this article will encourage you to stop underutilizing a powerhouse for your organization.
Tell Your Story
Sharing stories builds trust in your organization and helps people connect with your cause. The ultimate goal of a nonprofit’s website is to connect your audience to your organization.
Visitors must be able to connect with you before they take any sort of next step with your organization. Without a connecting point, there is no need for any other website features.
Stories make a typical website feel more personable.
As people, we crave connectedness. When you create a space to connect, you develop a space where people can cultivate a deep sense of trust in what your organization does for the community.
This sense of trust and respect leads people to be curious and take next steps toward your organization.
Here are some ways to ensure great storytelling on your nonprofit’s website:
Clearly state what your organization is about.
A nonprofit’s website should clearly state the purpose of your organization. It’s vital that a mission, vision, and values statement is present. Website visitors should be able to know what you are all about by checking out your website.
Make it clear, make it simple.
Share the story of your nonprofit’s beginnings.
A lot of organizations share “how they began” stories on their website along with stories about their founder or CEO.
This is a great way to connect to the people of your organization. As we said earlier, people crave connectedness with others. A captivating story about why your founder stepped out to create your organization creates that deep sense of trust and connectivity that often provides action from the reader.
Keep the story going by sharing blog updates.
Organizations that share updates on what they are doing and where the organization is going periodically know how to tell a good story.
Consider sharing updates via blog posts on your website. Allowing people to know what is going on within your organization develops a deeper sense of trust in what you are doing.
Create a story around statistics.
Sharing facts with your audience is important, but facts and figures only go so far. Backing up facts with real-life stories and relatable people is one of the best ways to get your point across while captivating your audience.
Instead of just talking about your accomplishments, share them via storytelling!
Allow Access to Quick Information
If you have never had a great online presence, now is the time to make it happen. As we trek deeper into the 2020s, it’s clear that people’s desire for quick information is here to stay.
Gen X has the highest volunteer rate, about 30%, which is the most of any generation. This means that it’s in your best interest to make sure your nonprofit’s website caters to them.
A great website doesn’t just cater to Gen X, but also to the 76 million Millennials out there. These two generations expect easy online interactions, so nonprofits should be building strategies that meet the current digital trends.
Access to quick information virtually is critical to know how to engage new donors. Getting tech-savvy is not just a good idea, it is essential to survival as we progress in our digital age.
Chat Features
A good nonprofit website offers a chat feature. Consumers are becoming more and more technologically savvy by the day and want to be able to have their questions answered before they move on to the next thing.
If you cannot offer this feature 24/7, that is fine!
We suggest trying to work up to 24/7 chat as your organization grows and website traffic increases. But to start off, having your nonprofit’s website chat covered for a portion of the day is better than nothing.
If you do plan to have someone online for a portion of the day, be sure to list specific times clearly on your site.
When thinking through who will be in charge of the chat feature, make sure that you have someone who can respond very quickly! You would be amazed how many people will use this feature and how it will help with taking consumers to their next step with your organization.
Simple User Experience
Your first impression will make or break it for your organization. Your website should be easy to navigate in all areas.
By making your nonprofit’s website mobile-friendly, you will make it so much easier for a majority of your visitors.
If you want to reach as many people as possible, you need to improve your website with mobile users in mind.
Mobile device traffic has increased 75% since 2015. 62.06% of all website traffic comes from people using mobile devices, so it is wise to make sure that your user experience is excellent for mobile users.
We suggest making content clean, concise and easy to follow. If you can’t navigate it easily, it’s likely most users who are not familiar with your organization will not be able to either.
If creating and updating your nonprofit’s website is overwhelming to you, hire someone to create and manage it for you! We know, it’s money. But we promise the return will be worth it!
Accessibility
A nonprofit’s website should allow visitors to get to resources in less than three clicks.
With technology always improving, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the information you could include on your website. Instead of junking up your site with unnecessary, but cool, features, first make sure that your viewers have a clear understanding of how to get where they are trying to go.
A nonprofit's website should be designed to make it easy to get help, learn more, and sign up.
Expect More Conversions
When you create a simplistic experience on your nonprofit’s website, you can expect to see more visitors turn into donors. When web design is done right, it becomes a tool for your organization.
A good website isn’t simply informational, it is a way for your organization to further its mission. A good donation page that connects to your mission goes far and should lead people to become more interested in your nonprofit.
Designing your donation page intentionally can help engage donors who are on the fence which often leads them to convert.
Keep People Up to Date
People want to know what is going on within your organization. Sharing stories about what is happening within your organization on your nonprofit’s website is important, but how can you take it a step further to communicate with website visitors how to be a part of what is happening?
Once you build a connection with your audience, they naturally want to be a part of your story. A good website helps keep visitors up to date on opportunities to serve and provides an opportunity for people to make a difference immediately.
Calendar of events
Having a calendar of events on your nonprofit’s website is important. Did you know that by utilizing an online calendar, your organization basically has an online ambassador that works around the clock for you?
Many organizations have an online calendar, but fail to use it to its full capacity. Online calendars have the capacity to recruit volunteers and increase participation!
Not only should the calendar let a visitor know when something is happening, it should also include links to online event registration for nonprofits, an opportunity to pay, and could even potentially have the capacity to put the event on your participant’s personal calendar.
Fundeasy is here to help with all of your online event registration needs. Check out our website to see which of our nonprofit fundraising software platforms would fit best for your event and let us know if you have any questions via our live chat feature.
A fully supported, digital calendar could be a game changer for your website.
If you aren’t keeping people up to date with what is happening in your organization, at the minimum have a calendar of events. Although, we suggest fully integrating your calendar to do the work for you!
Link to social media
Another way to keep people up to date with all things going on in your organization is social media. It is a shame to have a website that doesn’t link to social media and vice versa.
Linking all of your online accounts is vital to consistently keep your visitors, participants, and volunteers up to date. Without linking your online presence platforms, your audience will not comprehend the full scope of what your organization is doing.
Links expand your brand reach.
Many organizations are better at keeping their social media more up-to-date than their website. If this is the case, doesn’t it make more sense to link your social media pages on your website to ensure a positive online experience for your consumers?
Other organizations may pay someone to keep up their nonprofit’s website excellently, but have a sparse social media presence. If this is the case, be sure to link your organization’s website on all social media channels so that your audience is able to better understand what you do and be more “in the know”.
Provide an opportunity to give immediately
Providing your visitors an opportunity to give immediately is important. Once viewers connect with your story, many will be ready to give right away.
Offering an opportunity to give year around on your nonprofit’s website is vital. Hosting simple fundraisers on your website throughout the year is a great way to provide consistent opportunities for your website visitors.
To keep different fundraisers up to date on your website, you will need an easy fundraising platform to help provide a quality registration and donation experience. FundEasy makes it easy to fundraise!
You will also need the capability to update your website as fundraisers end and new ones begin. If you aren’t paying someone to keep up your website, ensuring that your website is easy to update for your team members is important.
Here are a few popular user-friendly platforms that many organizations use for their nonprofit’s website:
All three of these website builders are great platforms to use when creating an engaging website. Each of these platforms focuses on unique aspects of website creation and has its own style that’ll bring to your website’s design.
If you are looking for a new website platform, check these three out to see which style may fit your organization best!
Assist Your Everyday Efforts
Expand your reach
As we have stated throughout this article, strategically creating a website for your organization can make expanding your reach so much easier than traditional efforts.
By targeting the right topics on your website through a blog or other avenues, you can drive new search engine traffic.
Did you know that blogs are the best tools for connecting with your audience while increasing your audience size?
By learning more about keyword research and SEO, you can expand your nonprofit’s website reach significantly. If this seems overwhelming, hire someone to do it for you!
There are many companies now whose sole purpose is to understand SEO so that organizations are able to drive traffic to their platforms. There are also companies that provide SEO strategists to help you strategize as you develop your website.
Final Thoughts
Even if you have neglected your website for years, don’t worry. It’s not too late. Having a professionally built website can amplify your efforts and work in ways that you cannot.
If your nonprofit’s website is not up to par, we suggest prioritizing getting it up to date in 2023. Let your website work for you instead of being a burden. Hire someone if you need to hire someone, whatever it takes! We promise the return is worth it!
And don’t forget to integrate your website with your fundraising opportunities. We know it can all be overwhelming. Let FundEasy help take off some of the load by making fundraising simple with our fundraiser software! We make easy-to-use fundraising platforms that easily integrate into your website to help make your nonprofit’s website the best it could be!
If you'd like to learn more about our Peer-to-peer, Attendance, or Crowdfunding products, please reach out! We'd love to chat.
Also, if you haven't joined already, we have an exclusive Facebook Group just for our customers! If you are a current FundEasy Customer and would like to join, go here to learn more and request to be added!
Madison Hull
This article was inspired by our customers and written to encourage your fundraising efforts. Although we work with nonprofits and events daily, our team members are not Event Consultants. We encourage you to consult with your event consultant, executive team, and/or affiliate organization before making any major changes to your events.
