What your home page is probably missing

Answer: a great photo. One that moves you to a smile, a tear or a click to donate.

I look at dozens of nonprofit websites a week, and almost none of these have a dynamite photo. They may have no photo. Or a photo, but it’s small. Or corporate, stock-photo-looking image. Or a dull photo.

This should be the hottest priority for your home page. People glance at web pages, not peruse them. You want to pull them in fast, and there’s no better way to do that than with a compelling image.

Do you work with kids? Feature photos of them - or taken by them - on the home page. Or put a piece of their artwork on the home page. Do you work with animals? Put a big image of Rover on your page. Do you do something abstract, like advocacy for public lands? Show one of your super advocates standing in front of something they saved. Do you work on domestic abuse? Put a big photo of one of your hotline staff on the home page. HUMANIZE what you do. Bring it to life. Put it in pictures. Make that image a big piece of your home page real estate.

But Katya, you might say, what about YOUR home page? Errrrr, right. Paging Dr. Hypocrisy. BUT, we’re about to do this right at Network for Good’s nonprofit site - This is “before.” Stay tuned for the transformation. Goodbye field, hello humans.

Some great inspiration is at Collective Lens. I’ve invited them to share tips for great photos, and they kindly agreed, so stay tuned for those in an upcoming post.

Posted by on 08/14 at 11:27 AM

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Comments

Katya,

Your post is timed perfectly! You may already know this, but the news wires announced that the DMANF Recognized Operation Smile as 2008 Nonprofit Organization of the Year (see http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/disppressrelease?article=1189%20+++++).

Go to http://www.operationsmile.org and look at all of the photos on their homepage! These pictures “HUMANIZE"what they do.

Without photos, Operation Smile would not stand a chance of success.

Take care,

John Haydon
http://www.corporatedollar.org

P.S. - I’ve read Robin Hood Marketing 3 times.... love it!

Posted by John Haydon on 08/14 at 08:56 PM

Well done, John!

Posted by on 08/15 at 10:01 AM

A great background photo on the website would be the best imo!

Posted by Marketing Deviant on 08/15 at 11:37 AM

One problem some non-profits face is due to strict HIPAA regulations, we aren’t allowed to use photos of the kids that we serve and are left with stock photos. It’s a big challenge when you’re providing mental-health services.

Posted by Sue Anne on 08/20 at 03:50 PM

What about a finance site? You mentioned non-profit. I found it really hard unless you are creative to choose an image which speaks itself to the audience. This is a good tip though.

Posted by Atiq on 08/21 at 07:12 AM

Marketing Deviant,

A great service you should check out is fotolia.com. They have every kind of stock photo you can imagine. Using these would allow you to avoid the entire HIPAA issue.

John Haydon
CorporateDollar.Org

Posted by John Haydon on 08/25 at 08:48 PM

I agree. I personally respond much better to photos than endless paragraphs of text. How do you feel about video? I work with a non profit organization that built a video sharing site called GoodTube . I would love to hear your thoughts on how non profits can effectively use video to raise awareness of their cause.

Posted by Elle Wheeler on 09/23 at 11:32 PM

Elle,

Video is much better than photos - it engages more of the visitors senses and emotions.

I wrote a post a few weeks ago called “The Six ‘Sees’ of Video for Non-Profits”:

http://www.corporatedollar.org/2008/08/great-example-of-non-profit-video/

Let me know what you think.

John
CorporateDollar.Org

Posted by John Haydon on 09/24 at 12:08 PM

I like video but not everyone clicks on video or chooses to view it. So I would not have a video as the only visual on my home page. I think it’s a great addition but not replacement for photos on a website - there are still those who don’t “do” video or have a slow internet connection.

Posted by on 09/24 at 12:14 PM

Katya,

I agree - you should try and use both if you can.

Thanks,

John

Posted by John Haydon on 09/24 at 12:32 PM

I am a founding director of a nonprofit (Technology Access Foundation) and we’ve developed tools to track donors, volunteers, events and grants and have been using them for the last five years. I created a corporation to help other small nonprofits build capacity to continue their good work. All net proceeds go back to the Technology Access Foundation (http://www.techaccess.org).

Our newest product is something that will benefit all nonprofits who are looking for that edge in garnering donors in this tough economy.

We’ve developed PictureBooks, an online photo album that you totally control and can make seemless on your organizations website with a single line of code. You can store up to 200 pictures in a variety of albums that you create. As your programs have activities, you can post new pictures

Take a look at the example (http://samplesite.nonprofitis.com/PictureViewer.aspx) then go to our corporate website (http://www.nonprofitis.com) and see how your organization can get this for a one time fee of only $50!

Thanks!
-Trish

Posted by Trish Dziko on 11/15 at 12:02 AM

Trish,

Looks like an interesting application. How does it differ from Flicr?

John

Posted by John Haydon on 11/19 at 11:22 AM

Hi John,

The main difference between PhotoBooks and Flickr is the ability to imbed the viewer directly in your website instead of having to link to another site. No need for privacy settings, etc. because the pictures are displayed in one place.

thanks,
-Trish

Posted by Trish Dziko on 11/20 at 07:32 PM