by Ilona Bray

Make sure your website provides prominent information on making a donation or getting involved.

People might visit your nonprofit's website for any number of reasons: to find out your address, research an issue they're interested in, or just look for free desktop wallpaper. But no matter what brings them to your site, follow the tips below to make sure your visitors don't leave without considering making a donation or getting involved in some other way.

1. Provide Basic Contact Information

Your website should clearly state what your organization does, where it's located, and every possible way to get in touch with your development and other staff. It's best to provide your address as a footnote at the bottom of every Web page. Also, your "Contact us" link should do more than just pop up an email message box -- this is the place to tell people alternate ways to reach you.

Better yet, depending on your staff size and privacy concerns, you might create a page with staff job titles, biographies, photos, and contact information -- all of which helps your Web visitors feel they're getting to know your organization at a personal level. (One caveat: Posting email addresses opens up the addresses to spammers -- it's best to give out general email addresses, not the personal email addresses you use most regularly.)

2. Show Your Organization's Personality

In order to build a solid relationship with potential donors, your website needs to convey your organization's personality in a manner that's consistent with your fundraising and other marketing materials. Hopefully, you already have an idea of what image your organization is trying to present -- it may be traditional, scientific, homey, offbeat, ethnic, left, right, or center.

Take a look at the fundraising materials you've been producing, such as letters to donors, grant proposals, newsletters, and annual reports. Ask yourself what personality is emerging through the use of color, graphics, words, or photographs. Then look at your website and make sure it has the same personality.

Treat Web visitors in a manner true to your organization's mission and ideals. An organization that works with the elderly, for example, shouldn't use a tiny text font. An organization working with the disabled should ensure that its website is accessible to its clientele.

3. Provide Interesting and Helpful Content

The best websites contain substantive information, preferably information that the reader might not get elsewhere. Readers might be interested in your nonprofit's current activities -- ongoing projects, follow-up information on issues they've heard about before, or details and sign-up information for events and classes. If you're more ambitious, you can collect and post information from outside your nonprofit, such as articles about relevant national or local news issues. And if you've got a quick and opinionated writer on your staff, a blog is a good way to keep people coming back for fresh content.

Yes, it's a lot of work -- but studies have shown that readers rate substantive content number one in importance when evaluating a nonprofit's website. If you're able to, go one step farther and offer readers regular email newsletters or news alerts (a great way of collecting email addresses of potential future supporters).

4. Keep Your Web Content Fresh

Launching your website is a lot of work -- but too many nonprofits make the initial push, then allow the site to go stale. Unless your website appears current and up-to-date, you'll turn off the very people you were hoping to attract.

Ideally, interesting and timely content will make your website a regular stop for people tracking or researching the issue you cover, thus turning anonymous Web visitors into eventual donors. If that's too much to hope for, given your staffing and budget, at least don't bite off more than you can chew. Cull your annual reports, newsletters, and other materials, and put up stories or information that isn't likely to become dated.

5. Donation Information

Everything on your website should be easy to find, but links to information about donating or otherwise getting involved must be prominently displayed. At the same time, you don't want to rush people to the payment page without giving them some background information about why, how, and how much to give.

Include donation and volunteer tabs. Your homepage should have a tab saying "Support Us," "Get Involved," "How You Can Help," or something similar. This should lead to an introductory page explaining how donations will be used, how different dollar amounts will help, and any other relevant information about your projects and giving opportunities.

Link to payment page. Then offer a link to a payment page. If you can offer online donation opportunities, great. If not, offer a printable page that contains all the information on your regular reply card, along with information on where to fax or mail the completed form and check.