Nonprofit web design

My latest website is unusual, in that it was built for a business rather than a nonprofit organisation. The Change Management Group is a business consultancy that’s based in the UK but has an international reach.

WordPress MU

The Change Management Group wanted to use WordPress MU (Multi User) which is a version of WordPress that can host multiple blogs. WordPress MU can even be used to run communities of thousands of blogs. 99% of its code is identical to WordPress but that extra 1% enables you to do so much more. Although the site doesn’t currently host multiple separate blogs, the functionality is there for when they require it.

The WP-Remix premium WordPress theme

The Change Management Group also wanted me to install WP-Remix which is a premium (meaning you pay $75) theme for WordPress. It offers a way to get around the usual layout restrictions in WordPress by offering you a choice of templates for each page you edit. You want an extra column on your home page? You want a list of staff with thumbnail photos next to their details? Just choose the appropriate template. WP-Remix can be a bit buggy at times but the flexibility it offers makes it worth considering.

There are definite advantages to using a premium theme to build a website: the client can visualise what they’re going to get; premium themes are usually better coded than free themes; and they cut down on the design and coding work required if the site was to be entirely custom built; so you can jump straight into customisation.

Visit The Change Management Group’s new website.

WordPress is a great product, which is why it’s installed behind most of the websites I design, but it doesn’t do everything out of the box. Fortunately there is a way to change and add new functionality to the basic CMS, and that’s by installing plugins. So which plugins do I install most often? Read more »

I’m at Software Freedom Day, Melbourne today. It’s a fairly small event which attracts some interesting people (yes, geeks) to listen to talks and discuss open source software.

Kathy Reid gave a talk on beginner’s WordPress. She’s an assured presenter and did a great job of guiding us through its basic features and how they can be used to edit the content of a website. In her advanced session later in the day I picked up some practical tips on improving the security in WordPress – WordPress balances out the need for security with the need to keep the product simple and there are ways to improve this. By the way, Kathy’s also a top knitter.

Simon Hobbs from Em Space is now presenting about Drupal, with a very visual, diagrammatic  presentation explaining how this CMS works. I’m intending to use Drupal more in future so this demonstration is a useful primer. Em Space have done some great websites for nonprofit clients.

I’m hunting round trying to find someone who can support an open source product called CiviCRM because a nonprofit organisation I visited recently are considering using it. It’s a client relationship application that can sit behind Drupal on an organisation’s website. Anyone out there know someone who supports CiviCRM?

Charities are more likely to have poor website security than organisations in other sectors, according to the Web Application Annual Security Report 2009 which was published this week. What kind of insecurities did the report find?

Not having account lockout mechanisms in place, which stop hackers from repeatedly guessing passwords. That’s why on my websites (which use the WordPress CMS) I now use a plugin called Login Lockdown which locks people out of the login form if they keep entering incorrect passwords.

Charities often choose insecure passwords, which increases the chances of unauthorised access to accounts. Too many charities use their organisation’s own name or location as their password, sometimes with a letter replaced by a number. Anything that can be guessed is really poor security. LASA’s Knowledgebase has advice on choosing secure passwords. Read more »

The draft programme for the Making Links conference in Melbourne, November 2009  is now available from their website at www.makinglinks.org.au.

Featuring its usual successful mix of practical workshops, panels, oral presentations and networking opportunities, this year’s conference addresses the twin challenges of the global economic crisis and environmental sustainability.

The ICT infrastructure stream includes sessions on installing services remotely, free and cheap tools, rolling out IT infrastructure to inexperienced staff and clients, cloud computing, IT security, saving money by working collaboratively and more.

The Community Building and Social Media stream features a wide range of case-studies on how organisations are using web 2.0 to engage, connect and empower their clients and communities.

Practical and interactive workshops provide great opportunities to learn new skills such as pod-casting, writing for the web, and managing e-newsletters, or to focus on how we can work together to minimise the risks of climate change.

I’m particularly looking forward to Gian Wild’s web accessibility workshop. Web accessibliity is not something that most nonprofits have got to grips with and Gian’s got good form: she worked on the very first Australian accessible web site and was the accessibility consultant for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.

I was commissioned to complete an already half-built website for ARISE. They’re a nonprofit organisation in the US that sells training materials and courses for at-risk youth. The visual design was mostly in place but the shopping cart wasn’t working properly and there were a lot of formatting, navigation and other problems. E-commerce is something that only a minority of charities’ websites are set up to do so this has been an interesting project to work on.

Read more »

It’s important, when designing a website and writing content, that you do so in a way that’s meaningful and useful to your client group.

But what if your site’s visitors are split into groups with distinct and very different needs and different intellectual abilities? How does a single website serve both people with a learning disability, and health and social care professionals? Let’s see how the Mencap website – a design I particularly admire – successfully tackles this.

Read more »

What should you be reading to help you commission, design and manage a better nonprofit website and offer better services online? Here’s a round-up of publications I think you should take a look at. Most of them are available as free PDFs. There are a few more general nonprofit IT resources in there too.

Web Accessibility Pack for Voluntary and Community Organisations (booklet & CD)

Download the Web Accessibility Guide (PDF 1.7 MB)

This booklet from the ICT Hub is a practical introduction to web accessibility and tell you how to make your website accessible at little or no cost.  It explains what web accessibility is, the benefits and what the law says, as well as giving guidance for web managers, commissioners, designers and developers.

How to Use New Media Guide and New Media Case Studies

Download a copy of How to Use New Media (PDF 944 KB)
Download a copy of New Media Case Studies (PDF 701 KB)

The Media Trust published two booklets highlighting how VCOs can make the most of new media technology and giving practical examples of 10 organisations that have done it. I wrote several of the case studies. Read more »