The Web is an All New Media

While its possible to simply put many of your existing materials on the Web its probably not the most effective way of going about designing you site. That would be akin to putting a TV camera in a radio studio and calling it television. Using the Web gives you the opportunity to explore new ways of presenting your organization with the medium of the Web.

Since the Web is an interactive medium people expect to have an experience thats different from picking up their daily newspaper. This is probably one of the more difficult mental hurtles to pass.

The Web has no geographic boundaries. This means that you have the ability to reach individuals that previously may have been inaccessible to your other communication channels. Remember, though, that this means that you need to consider the wide range of individuals who may be looking at your Web site when youre making design decisions or writing content for your site.

Is your organization ready?

To make the Web work for your organization, there must be a belief that it can work. This means that not only must you be bought into the process but the rest of your organization as well.

In order to effectively use the Web as an outreach tool it needs to be incorporated into the overall communications goals of your organization. If your organization has a communications plan, the Web should be integrated into all aspects of that plan, whether it deals with communicating with your members, the general public or the press.

Finally, its important that there be a commitment of resources to the development and maintenance process of the site. While your organization may have one person whos designated as the Web site administrator, others in the organization will need to spend time preparing content or thinking about ways to integrate their programs into the site.

Your Role

Very few small nonprofit organizations have a staff person whos designated a full time Web site administrator. This means that if you play this role in your organization you most likely spend a good part of your time (perhaps the majority of your time) taking care of other tasks. This means you have a lot of work to squeeze out of a small amount of time.

You must be a Web Advocate for your organization. This means that you are responsible for touting the benefits of the Web to your organization and thinking about new ways of using your Web site. Hopefully it wont take too much prodding to get others interested in keeping your Web site fresh and up to date and helping you think about new features to add to your site.

Why invest in the Web?

So youve heard over and over that your organization needs to have a Web site, but why? There are a great number of advantages to having an effective Web site for your organization.

Probably the most straight forward reason to have a Web site is to aid in activism. Putting together a Web site that you can point interested folks to for regular updates on the issues youre organization works on can be a great way to get things done. It takes only a little effort for them to send an email to their representatives based on information that you can post on your Web site, and a little more to show up for events that you can advertise on your site.

The Web also allows for an increased level of interactivity with your members and community without the inconvenience of doing a large mailing or phone bank. Its easy enough to collect the email addresses of your members and send them email containing summaries with links to additional information on your site. You can also use more advanced features on your Web site itself to make it more interactive, perhaps using a database to allow folks search for information on your site, or have a multimedia presentation that gives them the option of controlling the experience

Having a good Web site also gives your organization a raised level of credibility in the eyes of some. These days there are a great number of people who will expect to be able to find anything they want on the Web. Having a Web site shows that youre making an extra effort to reach those people.

Another very obvious advantage to having a Web site is the ability to make large amounts of information available at little to no additional cost. You will most likely want to organize your site such that the most basic information is readily accessible to those simply skimming the site for a general sense of what youre doing, but its also possible to allow access to a greater depth of information for those researching your issue.

The Web can be a great fund-raising tool for your organization. There are a number of Web sites that provide the service of taking credit card donations on-line for little or no fee. You might also consider having a secure section of your own site set up for taking donations. This may cost you a little money to start, but may make people even more willing to give if they think the money is going directly to your organization.

Putting information about your organization on the Web allows you to increase your membership. Having a great Web site makes it easy to have your members or associates tell their friends about the organization through the Web site. Having a great site also allows you to bring in folks who might stumble upon your site through a Web search or a link from another site. Having a site thats easy to understand is very important for these individuals because they may have no background.

There are numerous ways that using the Web can benefit your organization. First it has the potential to actually save you time, or at least make your time a little more manageable. Putting general information about your organization on your Web site can potentially save you long phone calls describing what it is that your organization does and save you from having to mail out information packets. While you may trade the time that might have been spent on the phone for time spent maintaining your Web site, allocating time for regular Web updates should be more manageable for your organization.

The Web also allows you to provide regular updates that would be difficult to do by standard mail or even email. If you have an active membership, or are interested in getting your organizations membership more involved, what better way to going about that than letting them use your Web site to keep in touch? You may want to use email in conjunction with your site, for example you may send email to your membership on a regular basis letting them know when youve put new information on your site.

Cautions

A bad Web site can create a negative reflection on your organization. Just like having a great Web site can give your organization credibility, having a Web site thats not up to par can take away from your credibility. Even if your organization is otherwise effective in its work and accomplishes great things, having a substandard Web site can hurt your public image.

Having a Web site thats out of date can also hurt your credibility. Even a great looking site that has an urgent action alert thats a month and a half old takes away from your ability to convince folks that youre serious about your work.

A poorly designed Web site can be a real turn off. In some cases its simply esthetics, but more importantly its almost always tied to a lack of usability. If the site isnt designed such that its obvious how to find pertinent information, then that information wont be found.

Make sure that you site doesnt contain incorrect information. Whether its intentional or accidental this will detract from your credibility. Double check dates for event you post and try to always site sources for statistics.

Finally, be wary of copyright violations. Reprinting articles or displaying images that you dont have permission to use can get you in trouble and make you look bad.

The Hurdles

To afflictively use the Web most likely means making some changes to the way your organization works. Its important to set clear expectations and responsibilities for the individuals within your organization in regards to the Web development process.

It can be very easy to fall into the trap of technology for technologys sake. You can be particularly susceptible to this on the Web. Try to step back and think about the purpose for any features you want to put on your site. If theyre not going to improve the experience of the users of your site, then consider not using them. There are lots of bells and whistles available for your use on the Web. Well be talking about some of these later this week and most importantly, their appropriate use.

Finally, you may run into naysayers within your staff, board or membership. Hopefully the understanding gained in this training will help you explain the importance of the Web to those individuals.

The Composition of a Successful Site

The most successful site gives you a feeling of what the organization is doing. This is probably the hardest thing to attain on the Web because computers are inherently cold. However, the Web provides some great options for presenting your story in a way and with an accessibility that was impossible just five years ago.

A great Web site will also provide detailed information to those interested in more in depth. However even if your target audience are researchers looking for in depth information, its important to make this information available in a way that still makes the basics easy to get at.

While it may not be a hallmark of a great Web site, a great outreach plan involved promoting your Web site effectively. This can be at little or no additional cost (time or money) by using email and print links. Simply adding your Web site address to business cards, newsletters and other publications provides and easy way for people to find your site. Any promotional material you develop should link to your Web site, and even better your Web site should contain complimentary information. Its also relatively easy for all the individuals in your organization who communicate by email to add your Web site address to a signature file at the bottom of every email they send. All common email programs allow you to set this up and it can be a great way to promote your site with no real additional cost or time.

The best Web sites take advantage of the new media of the Web and provide interactivity to their users. Again, this can be a serious undertaking, but an option you should consider. Developing an interactive portion of your site may be a project you can specifically fund raise for.

Finally, one of the best indicators of a great Web site is that it is always fresh. Keeping your information up to date and interesting will encourage people to return to your site. Its easy enough to show that your information is fresh by putting dates by links to new information on your site.

What You Can Do With the Web

One of the most valuable things you can do with the Web is present a story in a much more engaging manner. The Texas Chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has put together a section of their site called the Toxic Texas Tour.

http://www.txpeer.org/toxictour/

This feature of their site gives you access to information on a number of different contaminated sites around the state and uses a number of features including a short initial summary, audio and video presentations and a more in depth overview with citings of sources.

Another example of a site that provides information in a way that would be difficult to deliver in a different medium is wtowatch, in particular their searchable document library:

http://www.tradeobservatory.org/Library/

This site has cursory overviews of the issues surrounding the WTO as well as access to archived, documents, audio and video and an events calendar.

A Web site that delivers a great deal of interesting information relating to Environmental news is Grist Magazine:

Grist uses humor as a hook for environmental news. While much of their content could be delivered in print format, the fact that its delivered via the Web allows them to update some sections of the site at different times. So while they couldnt put out a daily printed magazine, the daily updates of different features keeps the site fresh.