Those are some great ideas! Another idea for the home page of a nonprofit organization is a list of upcoming fundraiser events. Be sure to specify the event, when it will take place, the location and what time the festivities start.

& remember, only include a message from your CEO if he/she is extremely interesting and has a really compelling story

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Salman Khan
<a >Salman Khan</a>
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As a social networking blogger who focuses on best practices for nonprofits, I appreciate how challenging it can be to wrestle with the issues of fundraising. You’ve done a succinct, on-target job of spotlighting some of the keys to getting donors’ attention in an online community. I agree, the heartstring-tugging story is excellent, especially if the images and text highlight a donor’s personal story of giving. Keep up the great work, Katya!

Right on, Eugene:)

Katya, great write up!

In effort to round the list up to a smooth 10, I’d propose -

#9 - Engagement opportunity (pledge, petition, highlighted store item, event reg, social tags, poll, quiz, etc)

#10 - Engagement opportunity (pledge, petition, highlighted store item, event reg, social tags, poll, quiz, etc)

The more opportunities to engage your visitors, the greater the opportunity to recruit supporters. I know not everyone has the resources of an ASPCA, but there’s good reason why their homepage has 5-8 engagement points.

I would add to the list links to your social media presences.  It drives me nuts when people put time and energy into Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube channels, etc., but either hide the links deep in their website, or don’t share them at all.

Great post, Katya.  We’ve been doing some work on ours to incorporate many of these things.  I’d be happy to get feedback from you and your readers at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
http://childrensnational.org/give

Chas & Britt: GREAT additions.  What do you think of Mark’s site?

Mark, I think it looks great, nice work.

I especially like the number of engagement points…I counted 6! http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3349/3549549280_3180e97af0_o.png

Excellent suggestions, Katya. As nonprofits revisit their home page with your list in hand, they should keep in mind the old adage that “less is more.” 

Whether it’s because of the “org chart” syndrome you alluded to, or the desire to appease every internal stakeholder, too many home pages get really cluttered, really fast. 

As important as it is to get all the elements you identified on the page, it is equally important to ensure you haven’t simultaneously compromised usability. Best way to find out is to test the site with a representative sampling of target users and see whether it’s as intuitive to them as it is to you.

I completely agree, David.  Less is more, testing is everything.  Wise words!

Hi Mark - The site looks good.  Lot’s of things to look at and click. 

The one thing that is confusing is that the logo at the top says Children’s National Medical Center, Washington D.C., but everything else says Children’s Hospital Foundation and without scrolling down and reading the paragraph at the bottom, the relationship between the two isn’t clear. 

I think you need a one liner somewhere at the top of the page that uses all or part of the first line of your About paragraph, “The Children’s Hospital Foundation raises money to support the vital role Children’s National Medical Center plays in improving the health of children in the nation’s capital, across the country, and around the world.”

I could not have said it better myself, I think those are necessary to have a successful website. I might actually make some changes based on these recommendations in the near future.

This is a great summary, Katya.  I recently Tweeted this exact question wondering what a the most important items an org should think about.  I’m thinking about a new project that would review nonprofit orgs websites for best practices.  I feel if someone covers these type of big items then the other smaller tweaks will fall together more naturally on an org’s site.
Thanks for sharing this list!

Thanks for the ideas, Katya. We’re already doing most of these, but the engagement points like touching stories and events must be new all the time—constantly changing so the visitor gets something valuable each time.

I’ll be keeping your blog as a regular read.

Phone number to call is very important, so ppl could talk to the real person. And someone has to answare those calls even on weekends.

I think the general optic has to be outstanding, because when I visit a website, the first impression I get is not the content but the design. To get the users attention you could post an offensive comment.

good work…the web site is very important today…but as jan said design is the first impression and have to be good.