Alright, guys, here's the deal: if you run a nonprofit and your website's latest news is from 2004, or even January 2007, you're dropping the ball. There are plenty of potential donors and volunteers out there who are Internet savvy, and who will pass on helping you because your website lets them down.
A website is a really cool brochure. It is an arm of your sales force. It's pretty cheap compared to other types of marketing (paying sales pros, buying ads; mass mailings). As a business consultant - and don't kid yourself, a nonprofit is very much a business - I am here to tell you, invest your energy in your online presence.
It doesn't have to be fancy. Sharp looking, yes, but frilly graphics can actually distract from your message, and they can also frustrate people who still use DSL or, Heaven forbid, dial up.
If you run the local branch of a national organization, CREATE YOUR OWN WEBSITE! I'll use the following two links as examples.
This one I find incredibly frustrating: www.americanheart.org. How do I find out about my local chapter? I can call, write them a letter, or drop by, sure. But if I want to find out about goings on of my local chapter of the American Heart Association on, say, Sunday evening, I'll have to wait. As far as I can tell, they have no local website.
Note: this is a cause Coine has given to in the past, and we will again in the future. The Heart Association does great work.
Now here's another pair of links that are dead-on: www.bgca.org - on the Boys & Girls' Club's national site, you can look up your chapter and follow the link to your local club's site.
www.bgccc.com - and here is said local site. The local guys clearly said, "Hey, we've got important work to do, and we're going to get it done. Let's make a site of our own."
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