Welcome to our new e-newsletter! Technology can be an overwhelming topic to many nonprofit organizations; we are here to help de-mystify the process of growing your organization into a modern, online entity. Please let us know how we can be of help and feel free to email me any questions or topics for our next newsletter!
Julie Damon
Online Marketing Tips:
Take Back Your Website

Real World Problem:
Can an Event be TOO Big for Its Own Britches?

Nonprofit Website Makeover:
Seed Business Network Before & After

E-nomad Services Profile:
Webmaster Services
 
Take Back Your Website

It's your website, your logo and your database but do you really have full access to your own data? It's very easy to hand off technically challenging details to staff and volunteers, but I challenge all of you to take back your technology. Problems arise when volunteers or web designers offer to set up your web hosting for you but put the hosting in their name, or when web designers and graphic designers create beautiful artwork for you but don't give you the original files or when content management software companies collect data for you but don't give you full access to it. Here's what you need to do to bring all of that back under your control:

1.





 Sit down with your staff and put together a master list of all your online user id's and passwords including your web host account and ftp information, your domain name hosting information and any other online activity that requires a password. Keep this information in a safe place with the Executive Director and/or the Board President. Whoever has this information has total control of those resources; if the information is in the hands of a staff person who later leaves, you may not be able to access your accounts because no matter how much you plead over the phone you aren't likely to get in without the userid and password.
2.

Log into every online account that you have and make sure the organizational information is used not an individuals' information. If they require a contact name use the Executive Director's or Board President and then a general email address like info@ that will always be around unlike an employee's email address. Also make sure that the credit card information on file belongs to the organization.
3.




 Contact your web designer and graphic designer and get original copies of any special artwork pertaining to your organization such as your logo; the artwork should be given to you in the format of the program it was designed in as well as the usual .jpg or .gif formats- even if you don't have that particular program to open the original file, it's ok - as long as you have the file you will always be able to send it to another designer to make changes in the future. You paid for those designs - they should be yours to keep.
4.



 If you are using a content management software / service, make sure you have full access to your online database to make backup copies to your hard drive. The information gathered from online donation and other forms is very valuable and you have the right to have a backup copy in case something goes wrong. If the company does not allow it, you may want to rethink using them for the service.
 
Can an Event be TOO Big for it's Own Britches?

Having spearheaded large special events in the past, I know that one of the important goals of the evening is to make the bigwigs feel extra special. A great goal if it can be accomplished without making the littlewigs feel, well, little. I recently attended an annual fundraising event for a local nonprofit that was held at the nonprofits newly renovated facility. The nonprofit offered individual tickets ($50) or you could sponsor a table.

I bought my individual ticket and, as I had never been to the event, I looked forward to seeing their new facility, finding out what their future building plans were, bidding on silent auction items and enjoying whatever food and entertainment were offered. I left not seeing any of their renovated facility, having no idea what they were about let alone what their future building plans were, tired after standing in long food lines, unable to get through the crowds to the silent auction table to bid and unable to actually see anything but hearing impaired from the loudest and most distorted sound system I've ever heard.
CLICK HERE for Full Story
 
Seed Business Network Before & After
The old Seed Business Network website (Left) had a beautiful animation of an orange tree growing from a seed to a full tree that looked really cool but it took too much time to load and site visitors could think they were on an agricultural site instead of a business site. So for the new site (Right) we made the message more clear (helping businesspeople with disabilities) and the overall site more business professional. We also made the site less wide than the original to accommodate anyone viewing the site on older computers. CLICK HERE for more portfolio examples.
 
Webmaster Services
Maintaining your website is as important as designing it! .While volunteers are a huge asset to every organization, we do not recommend using volunteers to maintain your site. Your website is mission-critical; traditionally you would not put volunteers in mission-critical positions because you need consistency and timeliness for those types of duties. We urge you to train a current paid staff member or hire a webmaster. CLICK HERE for more information and pricing
January 2007