managing your non-profit organisations website Jason King www.kingjason.co.uk Making Links Conference, Melbourne 2008

be your organisations web champion every non-profit website needs one

heres a non-profit website that badly needs a champion

you are the admin take control of your own website

Manage your own web content with Joomla! WordPress Drupal Plone or many, many other CMS !

secure your domain name now before someone else does

and dont forget to renew it!

• When their poems disappeared

• to be replaced by something weird,

• belatedly the Poetry Society knew

• that they had forgotten to renew

• their Internet domain;

• and Viagra ads were not quite germane for their new schools poetry campaign.

how do other non-profits use the web? start here: www.squidoo.com/org20

think beyond your website use social networking to reach people

plan your sites structure sketch a site map

keep your planning lo-tech post-it notes dont crash

Needlepoint is a valid web planning tool

Wireframes help you visualise your site layout. They are done before any graphic design. You can create them easily in PowerPoint

involve staff, trustees, volunteers and clients in planning your site but limit decision-making to a few people (web champion, committee)

write a brief (and try to keep it brief)

• always have a brief, even for a small project

• refer to it at crucial stages

• concisely detail the functionality you need

• insist that code meets W3C & WAI standards

• include background information, timescales & expectations

• include a basic site map

• ideally, get a techie to help you write it

the brief specified a brochure-style website

Someone suggested adding a blog and forums

whats essential to this web project? what can wait? What wont work?

whats essential to this web project? web 2.0 blog forums ajax maps video plugins kitchen sink FAQs online services widgets feed corporate hymn api what can wait? What wont work?

Avoid scope creep by getting work signed off at crucial stages

who should build your website?

your trustees nephew whos doing web design as a school project? maybe not

the chap who did a great job installing your network? but who knows little about web design

would a volunteer be suitable for a small project? absolutely, provided they are an experienced web developer

could you design the website yourself? yes, provided you have the skills, but what if you leave the organisation?

should you commission a web developer? how will you find them? how much should you expect to pay?

insist on standards-compliant code

• A charitys website was designed using outdated practices: font tags, frames and a table-based layout and style attributes in the html throughout many dozens of pages. Next year, when their corporate identity changed, they had to redesign the entire website. On a better-designed website they could have simply amended the CSS and changed a few images.

Involve staff and clients in testing

test your website for errors

• HTML: validator.w3.org

• CSS: jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator

• Broken links: validator.w3.org/checklink

• Colour contrast: www.snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html

guess how many HTML errors?

Four Surprised there are so few errors? Valid HTML is only one aspect of accessibility

Just in case you get run over by a Melbourne tram tomorrow

compile a tech folder for your website

what should you record?

• domain control panel login

• domain renewal date (put in your diary!)

• web hosting control panel login

• FTP details

• CMS logins

• third-party website logins (Google Analytics etc)

• contract and support details

do you backup your website?

• Whilst uploading new documents to an educational charitys website, Dreamweaver glitched and deleted both the local and remote copies of the site files.

• A volunteer designed an Internet radio stations website. After a petty disagreement the volunteer deleted the entire website.

Get a Google Grant

• Free online advertising for your non-profit using Google AdWords. Apply now because you can wait up to six months!

www.google.com.au/grants/

analyse your web stats to help improve your website Notice the sudden rise in visits? That was the result of a Google Grant

managing your non-profit organisations website Jason King Making Links Conference, Melbourne 2008 Presentation is available to watch again at www.kingjason.co.uk. Planning your Non-Profit Websites Development

Thanks

• to the following Flickr.com users whose use of a Creative Commons license meant I could re-use their photos in this presentation: dannyman, Marco Wessel, Daryl Mitchell, aynne, activeside, daveknapik, iamilk, Sam Knox, vidnar, ardenstreet, maadmob, pingmag, sita puddin pie

• and to Vincent Flanders for bringing the glaucoma website to my attention.