Nonprofit web design

While you’re browsing websites, do you notice the icon in the left of your Internet browser’s address bar. There might be a tiny picture up there representing that website. And if you save that website in your Favourites you’ll see the same picture come up when you look at your list of favourite websites. That icon is called a Favicon and your charity’s website should have one if you want your site to show out amongst all the other sites your visitors have bookmarked.

I’ve added another 20 charities’ favicons to the list:

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Did you know that Melbourne has the biggest Greek population outside of Greece? That’s why I was commissioned to design the Greek Care website by Fronditha, a charity in Victoria, Australia. The website, which launched this week, provides information and advice about the care of elderly Greek people.

The site publishes over 80 articles, specially written for health and social care professionals to help them understand Greek culture and attitudes and provide better care services. Topics are wide-ranging: providing palliative care; death and mourning; where to find recipes that clients will enjoy; making culturally appropriate assessments; favourite Greek games; and how to make a cup of Greek coffee. The site has audio clips to help professionals pronounce basic Greek phrases such as “would you like a blanket?” and “where do you have pain?”. There’s also a directory of Greek-speaking services in Victoria, Australia.

The website was developed using the free and open source WordPress content management system. I’d like to tell you how that project was tackled, and how various plugins were installed to add extra functionality to the basic CMS. Read the full article »

Ever wondered how your web stats compare to those of other nonprofit organisations? Are you getting fewer visits than is average for an organisation of your size? Or are your visitors spending more time and looking at more pages on your website than on those of other charities? Now you have a way to find out, because since February 2008 Google Analytics has been offering benchmarking reports.

Here’s a screenshot showing an example of a benchmarking report. The thick blue line is the website being monitored; the thin black line shows the average visits and page views for other, similar-sized charities. Read the full article »

Email newsletters, how hard can they be? Well, I just set up my first HTML e-newsletter campaign and it’s been a difficult, sometimes frustrating experience, but worthwhile because email is a great marketing tool. I never realised it would all be so complicated! Read the full article »

Baptcare is large nonprofit organisation providing care services in the state of Victoria, Australia. With over 760 staff based in several dozen locations, working in very different projects, good internal communication is vital. That’s why their Intranet is so important to them.

An Intranet is like a website except that it’s only available to people working within the organisation. It’s used to share information internally rather than to publicly promote the organisation’s services. Recently I designed their Intranet’s home page. Read the full article »

As a follow up to the talk I gave about my experiences of the Circuit Rider programme in the UK, Doing IT Better are holding a workshop to take the discussion forward another step: how exactly could such a programme be implemented in the Victorian community sector?

Circuit riders are roving ICT workers with a caseload of small non-profit organisations that would not otherwise be able to afford ICT advice and support. Circuit riding is a model of ICT support that has already proven its value in the US and UK and in other countries.

If you’re interested in the provision of ICT support to non-profits, why not attend Doing IT Better’s workshop? It will be held on 22nd April in central Melbourne.

Google has a new section on its website listing its free tools that are useful to non-profit organisations. At www.google.com/nonprofits you’ll find a list of these tools. Click on each one to go to a page that explains how your organisation could benefit and how to get started. Read the full article »