Blog

As we’ve discussed a few times before, we realize that non-profits tend to have limited budgets. So you may see the websites listed below and think, “Yeah, of course they have amazing websites – they’re loaded!” But while it is true that these non-profits are among the highest in the world in donations received, the fact is, money is not always the best indicator of whether a website will be good or not.

There are plenty of examples of really wealthy non-profits having poor websites, and there are plenty of examples of small non-profits having good ones. There are plenty of web design companies out there that are capable of giving you a really well-designed site that doesn’t break the bank.

So as you look through these few examples, just use them as inspiration. If you like the look, maybe use it as a guideline for your web designer to follow. Chances are good that as long as you’re using a professional web designer, they’ll be able to create a site with your desired look and feel, even if they don’t cost $50k like the big non-profits can spend.

1. World Vision

What stands out the most about the World Vision website is first and foremost the images. These images are high-quality and colorful and really grab your attention. What makes these images even more powerful is the fact that they display actual people who are affected by the efforts of World Vision.

In addition to the images, as you scroll down the screen, you’ll see really well-designed icons that convey their primary organizational goals, as well as high-quality logos for major outlets that have promoted their organization.

If you take the basic concepts of high resolution images, custom icons, and relevant logos to your web designer and have them whip up a web design for you featuring these things, chances are good that the site will look very modern and professional, regardless of whether you paid the designer $1200 or $50,000.

2. Direct Relief

The real beauty here on the Direct Relief website is in the simplicity. While the images are high-quality and impactful in showing how they help people, they aren’t necessarily the focal point of the whole page. The offset images next to descriptive text and calls-to-action show they want to direct people’s attention to other areas of the site where they can learn more.

Simplicity, when not done well, can look like shoddy or lazy design. If you’re going to go with a minimalistic feel, you will want to make sure you work with a designer you trust who can carry out the minimalist look without it looking incomplete or bare.

Web design truly is an art, and that is never more evident than in simple, minimalistic design. Having a site like Direct Relief is certainly do-able, but if you’re trying to pinch pennies, you run the risk of ending up with a site that looks unintentionally bare instead of artfully minimalist. 

3. Americares

The beauty is in the colors on this site. The image above doesn’t show much, but as you scroll down the homepage on this site and interact with the navigation menu across the top, you’ll see that color plays a prominent role in the design.

The dynamic movements and dropdowns of the menu look great and also make it easy for site visitors to find what they’re looking for. The video halfway down the page is a great touch and displays what the organization does and who it impacts. Scroll further down the page, and you’ll see beautiful custom-designed colorful icons, a blog section, a news section, and an email newsletter sign up – all using colors and images that attract your attention and flow beautifully together.

Being completely honest, if you’re going to use this website as your guideline for your own non-profit’s website, it would require a pretty hefty investment in design and development. As far as colors go, you can certainly have a designer incorporate more colorful elements in to your website even on a limited budget. Adding splashes of color gives a sense of modernism, even to a simple, templated site. For instance, we worked color into a recent website that we built for a non-profit and it turned out really beautiful.

I hope you find these sites helpful as you look for web design inspiration for your non-profit website. We’d be happy to discuss putting any of your ideas/inspirations into practice, so feel free to reach out to us to discuss your non-profit web design project!

Rebuilding Together is a non-profit organization with branches in 146 cities nationwide that is dedicated to providing home improvement services to low income families.

Deb Iliff and her husband Frank are the Volunteer Coordinator and Executive Director, respectively, of Rebuilding Together Muscatine County located in Muscatine, Iowa.

They’re long-time clients of Big Imprint (in fact one of our first ever website clients, way back in 2010)!

We got the chance to pick Deb’s brain about how she goes about managing non-profit volunteers and hear about the challenges she faces, how she overcomes them, and the valuable lessons she’s learned.

Q: Can you give an overview of what the process of coordinating volunteers looks like?

A: The first step is to get the projects lined up and figure out who needs what done, how many people we’ll need, and what roles will need to be assigned. After that, it’s time to start getting the word out and get volunteers. Then it’s my job to keep track of all the volunteers and get them assigned to the proper jobs and all that.

There are always things that change as the projects approach and even on the day of. I do my best to coordinate everything, but really you have to just be ready for anything to happen.

Q: How do you go about recruiting volunteers and spreading the word about volunteer opportunities?

A: Word of mouth is huge for us. Often our work speaks for itself, as people are able to see the work we’ve done and the impact it has and it piques their interest in getting involved in the future.

We also bombard social media when we have projects coming up, so a lot of people hear about us and our volunteer opportunities through social media.

In addition to that, we also have corporate sponsorships with local companies, in which they allow their employees a day off to go and volunteer.

We also do a lot with the local paper and radio stations, so there are a lot of different ways we make ourselves known to people.

 

 

Q: How do volunteers sign up?

A: There is a sign up sheet on our website. On this sheet people are able to select what types of jobs they want to do or are qualified to do. Not everyone can run a table saw, for instance, so it’s important for that form to help us filter out who can do what tasks.

Once we get all the signups, we’re then able to plug them into the different projects based on their skills and preferences.

We also utilize local connections like through our church and other churches who are nice enough to allow us to have a table in the lobby where we can tell folks about the opportunity to volunteer and we also have paper sign up forms there for them to fill out if they want. Otherwise they can go sign up online later.

Q: What tools do you use to help with the organization and scheduling of volunteers?

A: I’m techy, but I’m not high techy. We just use an Excel sheet with all the information from the sign up forms plugged into it.

Right up until two days before the event, there is a table with Post-it Notes where I have people’s names and jobs written on them. Then as we get closer to the day, I move the Post-its around to the different jobs to assign people to the proper tasks that line up with their skills and interests.

You can always count on a 40% walk-up, meaning people who didn’t sign up or anything beforehand, they just show up and want to help out. So for those people, we have personnel available to help them get the waivers filled out and then they come back to me and ask for a placement.

Excel sheets and Post-it notes—not a highly sophisticated system, but it works well for me!

Q: What have you learned about managing volunteers that you wish you would have known earlier on?

A: People will always tell you “yes” but a lot of times they don’t come through. We’ve had dozens of people say “yes, we’ll be there, you can count on me!” but then they don’t show up because it’s too cold, too hot, or something else came up. People can be fickle and life happens sometimes, so often we’re left in a situation where we have to try and overcome the absence of volunteers.

It’s my job to, as best I can, make sure the volunteers understand how vital their help and effort are. It’s so important to tell your story and to get people to “buy in” to the vision of what your organization is trying to do. Make sure that people understand why they’re volunteering, because if they don’t feel like they are making a difference, then they’re not going to be dedicated and there’s a higher chance that they won’t come through.

Q: What mistakes did you make early on that you would warn others about who may just be getting started with volunteer management?

A: Start earlier. Don’t start preparing for projects just two weeks in advance. These things take twice as long and cost twice as much as you think they’re going to.

Each year we come up with a better list consisting of what we did well, what we could have done better, and things that we should never do again. We always debrief and learn how we can be better in the future.

In addition to that, as a volunteer coordinator, it’s incredibly important to talk to people and ask for help. Always be willing to ask for feedback and suggestions from people, and seek out helpful resources or other people with experience and ask for their advice.

It’s so important to start early enough that you can prepare for all the little details and get as much help from people as possible.

Many thanks to Deb for taking the time to talk with us! 

—Mitch and the Big Imprint crew

Non-profits may have a variety of revenue streams, but one of the most prevalent across all types of non-profits is private donations. Much of the donations that non-profits receive anymore are through their website, so we wanted to discuss was to go about increasing non-profit donations online.

Now, unless you have some very faithful check-senders, chances are good you either have an online donation option available, or you’re soon going to have it available.

Whatever the case may be, once you have an online donation option in place, that’s just the beginning. It’s not enough just to have it there and to expect money to start flowing in – you need to continue to take action to promote continued giving, as well as new first-time giving.

Below are 5 ideas that are easy and free to help with increase non-profit donations:

1.Make it Simple!

Once someone gets to your website, make it very easy to find the donation page (for instance, have the “donate” button placed on every page of the website). But once someone gets to the donation page, the process of giving needs to be really simple.

You want to eliminate any unnecessary barriers that might cause them to hesitate, procrastinate, or in the worst case scenario – just give up and leave your site. The donation form should be clean and easy to fill out, and should never take the user off of your website. This makes people feel like their money isn’t actually going to your organization and is just not professional. Make sure the donation portal is embedded within your site so that the giver never has to leave the site or question where the money is going to end up.

2. Explain the Usage of the Donations

People like to know what exactly their money is going to be used for. If they’re about to give to your organization, chances are good that they’re pretty supportive of whatever it is you do, but it’s always good to just lay out what exactly their money will be going toward.

It’s also very strong to show what past donations have gone to as well, so they can “quantify” the impact of their giving, in a sense. For instance, a sentence saying, “Last year, we received x amount of money in donations from people like you, and with that, we were able to serve x many people.” This helps people envision what exactly they are contributing to when they give you money. You’re more likely to successfully get them on board when they feel like they’re part of a solution to a problem.

3. Set Default Donation Amounts

This goes back to the simplicity point, but it also has to do with basic psychology. It’s easier for people to click an amount than type in a custom amount themselves. Plus, if you put multiple options, then people who were going to type in a number lower than your lowest option will often opt to just click the lowest option instead. Boom – you just got more money from them.

It’s good to test out different amounts as well. Perhaps on occasion you want to try increasing each amount by $5. Or maybe you see what happens if you eliminate the lowest option. It’s worth testing to see what people do. If you can get more money from your donors simply by making minor changes to the default options, then by all means try it!

4. Provide a Recurring Payment Option

This is a feature that you hopefully have if you already have a donation portal on your website, but if not, you should talk to your website folks about adding it. When people donate on your site, you should absolutely have an option available for them to make it a recurring gift.

If they’re passionate about your organization and your mission, chances are good they want to partner with you on a regular basis, as opposed to just a one-time gift. If that’s the case, then you’re leaving much-needed money on the table by not providing this simple option for them. Make sure you allow those who want to give monthly or yearly the opportunity to do so!

5. Social Sharing

The best marketing is word of mouth, and the best word of mouth channel is social media. When folks get done submitting their info and their donation, you should have a social sharing button available. This will allow folks to quickly share via Facebook or Twitter that they just donated to your organization.

The goal here is to organically spread the word about your organization in order to increase awareness, drive traffic, and ideally convert more people into active contributors of your organization. If someone sees their Facebook friend is passionate about your non-profit, then they’ll likely be curious and decide to check you out as well.

Hopefully you find these ideas helpful as you look to increase donations on your non-profit’s website. We care about non-profits and love working with them. If you are a non-profit in need of web design help, we’d love to chat with you!