January 4, 2011

Is Your Website Hurting Your Cause?

Donor advocate Saundra Schimmelpfennig of Good Intentions are Not Enough has launched a new blog series exploring how nonprofit websites may be doing more harm than good …

Take a minute to look at your organization’s Web site. What makes it different from the Web site of any fly-by-night charity?

To me, nonprofit Web sites all look pretty much the same. Most prominently feature success stories with photos of happy people, information on how little money is spent on administration costs, and a “click here to donate” button. If charities do include any information on standards, lessons learned, or evaluation results, they are generally so well hidden that few potential donors ever stumble across them …

This lack of information makes it difficult for the average person to distinguish a charity that invests time and money on developing quality programs from those that don’t.

As the founding director of The Charity Rater, Schimmelpfennig is no casual observer when it comes to educating donors on the worthiness of an organization. I’ll keep you posted on her series …