Raising funds is critical for nonprofits. However, donors want to feel assured that their contributions will go to a reliable and competent organization that will translate their investment into making an impact. Establishing that trust involves transparency and ratings through sites like Charity Navigator and Give.org. In addition to such ratings and certifications, an organization’s website that effectively tells the nonprofit’s story while making a compelling case for donor investment is crucial. It requires delivering impactful content and messages on every page.
Your nonprofit’s website should be a well-structured platform that showcases the strengths, successes, viability, and vitality of your nonprofit. Your site structure and content strategy are two of the most critical elements that determine whether people will hit that donate button or just be another sad metric on your bounce rate; let’s take a look at how STAUFFER guides its nonprofit clients to demonstrate their worth in ways that compel engagement and investment.
Drive Donations Through A Strategically Aligned Homepage
The homepage typically offers one of the first impressions of your organization to potential donors, and in doing so it plays a crucial role in laying the groundwork for securing donations and support.
Crafting a strategically aligned homepage provides a nonprofit with a user experience that effectively communicates the nonprofit’s mission while establishing the necessary credibility with potential donors that instills trust that their contributions will be used to produce the maximum real-world impact.
A strategically aligned homepage is achieved through:
• Clearly convey the organization’s core mission supported by impactful imagery and video
• Demonstrate successes and recent activity
• Demonstrate transparency
• Make clear and emotionally compelling calls to action
Apart from storytelling, the homepage should also streamline the donation process, making it easy and user-friendly while providing secure, straightforward donation pathways for visitors who are eager to contribute.
By properly aligning the homepage’s structure, it will serve as a catalyst for converting visitors into active supporters.
The Strength of an ‘About Us’ Page
Aside from succinctly articulating who you are and what you do prominently within the homepage, the importance and role of an ‘About Us’ page in establishing a robust and credible identity cannot be understated. Your ‘About Us’ page is where your nonprofit expands on telling its story by building upon its mission, values, and history in ways that audiences find inspiring.
In building the ‘About Us’ section for the California Science Center, we realized this beloved institution’s mission, story arc, and attractions were too grand to live within a single page. Instead, we created an ‘About Us’ page that delineated their mission statement and features, then created dynamic and informative tertiary pages to provide more focused sub-narratives.
By creating a nested structure for the California Science Center’s ‘About Us’ section, STAUFFER could simplify how important information is presented within the section’s pages without sacrificing relevant content. This structure also allowed for even more compelling storytelling that could be expanded upon as the institution grows.
Making the Most of a ‘Meet the Team’ Page
Your ‘Team’ page’s primary function is to showcase the best and brightest of your staff and leadership. It’s a space to show how and why each staff member is dedicated to your mission. Whether placed all on one page or separated into individual pages, every featured team member should have a bio, profile image, and some sort of contact information in the way of an email or phone number/extension. By humanizing your staff, users can learn why they have devoted their careers to the organization’s mission, further making the case for contributing. When users relate their own personal stories to those of an organization and staff, it helps with building bonds between patrons and nonprofit organizations.
Leveraging Media/Press Pages to Highlight Achievements and Milestones
The Role of a ‘Media/Press’ Page is to provide a resource for writers and news outlets to access key facts on ongoing events with your nonprofits. A dynamic, easy-to-navigate ‘Media/Press’ page is a critical resource for boosting your nonprofit’s recognition and credibility.
Within your ‘Media/Press’ page, there are many resources you must make available to media outlets. Namely, a rolling list of your most recent press releases, a contact email, and a list of resources and documents that supply supplemental information pertinent to your nonprofit. This supplemental information may include a fact sheet, a page of usable images (with captions), an archive of older press clippings, and quotes from donors and faculty.
In the case of the California Science Center, we structured the placement of new press releases on the left two-thirds of the page while listing contacts and press resources on the right. In doing so, California Science Center’s ‘Press/Media’ page maintains a simple-to-read site while keeping all its media assets readily accessible.
By using an open-source CMS, you can be in control of your narrative by updating this page regularly with fresh content as it is created and immediately supplying a hungry press media with announcements on your nonprofit successes. Using tagging and indexing features about the nature of your press releases also grants reporters a simple navigation system that encourages them to learn more about other similarly related developments that lead to better stories and friendlier relationships with news outlets.
Utilizing Testimonials and Success Stories to Demonstrate Impact
Nonprofit organizations are built to create an impact, and a nonprofit’s testimonials and successes are how we credibly show the world the impact that’s been made. They are the receipts of the organization’s hard work. The power of publishing these testimonials and success stories is how they convey proof of the impact of supporting the organization’s work. By sprinkling quotes from those who benefited from your nonprofit’s work across your site’s pages, prospective donors and site visitors gain confidence in the organization.
Taking things a step further, hiring a solid video production team to record testimonials gives you evergreen content that can be used on your site and for content to populate social media channels. By reaching out to beneficiaries and donors to record these compelling videos, not only do you strengthen the reputation of your nonprofit, but you also build strength within your community.
By taking note of these practical applications of marketing tactics to your nonprofit’s website, you can build a well-rounded picture of your organization’s value to the community and your prospective donor audiences. In combination with providing thoughtful attention to transparency and living your mission statement, your nonprofit can grow and thrive within your community by building narratives upon the hard work and equity you have already invested; all you have to do now is let the world know, and not be afraid to shout it confidently.
If you want to evaluate or improve your organization’s online presence, STAUFFER’s creative strategists, copywriters, designers, and developers can help enhance user experiences for nonprofits. Book a consultation today to see the difference we can make.
