OpenSourcery

Here's the scenario: I'm listening to the local public radio station, your non-profit organization's Executive Director is being interviewed and says something thought-provoking about your work that catches my attention. The show host mentions the URL of your website, the segment ends, and I decide to head over to your homepage. Great. I read a little more about the work your NPO is doing, and explore bits of your website. I notice a prominent button which says “Donate Now!”, and I decide to click it.

I am taken to a webpage which could be called The Myriad Ways You Can Support This NPO, Most of Which Aren't by Making an Instantaneous Cash Donation Via the Web a Moment Ago . On this page I am greeted by a message,

Good news ! You can donate your old cell phone, or attend a car wash, or volunteer your time, or mail a check, or include us in your last will and testament, or make a web gift, or buy books online via this link, or drop by with a carafe of orange juice on a sunny day, etc.

At this point the chance that I'm going to give to your organization today drops off sharply.

The theory behind the multiple-ways-of-giving donation page goes something like this: If we give people more ways to support us, more people will find the way they want to support us, and in the final summation we will have more support and more supporters. The assumption being that people give because they find a way to give that they are most comfortable with. Let's call this The Catch-all Theory of donation pages.

If someone walked in the front door with an over-sized donation check in their hands, made out to your NPO, would your first response be to ask how they want to give ? Would you provide an overview of the many possible ways they could give, just in case they want to volunteer or donate used household items instead of handing over the check ? No, because it's clear this person has already decided to give and their preferred method is oversized novelty check.

The problem with the catch-all theory is it places the interests of those least likely to support your organization ahead of the interests of donors who are the most likely to give. A person who just clicked “Donate Now!” should absolutely never be offered other ways to give; they want to give online.

Some of the people who go to your general donation page are ready to donate cash, and you should do your utmost not to distract these people when they are feeling generous. The rest of the people who visit your donation page aren't planning on giving anything, or buying a book online via a special link, or gathering up household items, etc.

In addition to distracting would-be donors, each additional support alternative you put in front of would-be web-donors diminishes the perceived importance of cash donations to your organization.

Why should I donate cash, when this cast-off household item appears to be of equal importance to your cause ? I could use the cash I save to buy myself a book via that special link, right ? Chances are your organization can do more with the cash donation than it can with my worn out vacuum cleaner and the $1.50 you get from my book purchase. Let your general donation page convey that by eliminating these low value donation methods.

It's still ok to tell people where to mail a check, you can keep that on the main donation page, but don't place it between online donors and “donating now”; ensure web-donors get the instant-philanthropic-rush they expect.

If you still want to offer a few ways to give, I suggest creating a far less prominent “other ways to support us” page. I'll explore people-focused ways to develop interest in these alternatives, without distracting web-donors in my next post.

While visiting the website of Your Worthy Charity I see a prominent button labeled “Donate Now!”. I read a little more about the work your NPO is doing, explore bits of your website, and again I see that prominent button which says “Donate Now!”. I think, “Yes, this is a worthy cause. I'll donate”. I click the button and that's where everything falls apart.

There are many ways the “Donate Now!” button can fail, I'd like to explore The Big One first.

Now means now

After I click a “Donate Now!” button the very next page I see should be an online gift processing form which I can use to complete the transaction. I shouldn't be taken to a general donation page, a page which tells me about the cause and entreats me to consider making a donation, or a page where the gift processing form isn't immediately visible at the top of the page. Starting from the moment I've decided to make a gift, every time I have to click, scroll, read a paragraph, or choose between pages on the website it reduces the chances that I will finish making the donation.

Count the number of page-changing clicks it takes to make a gift through your website from any page. This is sometimes called “click depth”. The “Donate Now !” button counts as the first click, unless you had to navigate to a particular page just to see the “Donate Now!” button. Clicks a person does while entering their information don't count in this exercise, but clicking the submit button on the form does, and clicking the transaction confirmation button also counts.

4 clicks start-to-finish is ok, provided the first click takes you directly to the gift form. 3 clicks is the gold standard and mid-to-large sized nonprofits should always endeavor meet this standard. If your “Donate Now!” click depth is 5 or greater it's time to change how donations are handled on your website.

If your nonprofit needs help keeping the “Donate Now!” experience in-the-now, Contact OpenSourcery Now ! We're here to help.

When a person visits your non-profit's website they need to be instantly reassured about a few things:

1. This is the right website for your non-profit organization.
2. The organization is currently active and has it's act together.
3. The website behaves as expected.

In my experience non-profits usually get #1 right just by stating their name and their service region. Keeping your website up-to-date in terms of appearance and fresh content usually takes care of #2. There are many ways a website can fail to behave as expected, automatically making sound is just one way. The Code of Website Silence is the most basic rule The Internet has, and nonprofit organizations frequently violate this rule as they strive get visitors engaged about their charitable cause.

Websites should not make any sound, except in response to a clear choice on the part of the visitor to play the multimedia on your website. If I can hear your website, and I didn't tell it to make a sound, then your website is misbehaving. When music, videos, or sound recordings start playing all of a sudden, it throws your visitor into a panic. They will frantically try to stop the sound from happening. Your website shouldn't beep or make little user-feedback blips, clicks, or fizzles in response to mouse interactions; while these brief sound effects aren't as bad as, say, playing music or recorded speech, they are still an intrusion into the quiet enjoyment your website promises each visitor.

I have been amazed at how many nonprofit website breach The Code of Website Silence, since it's an easy rule to follow and it was established in the early days common web development practice. Just when I think I'll never come across a non-profit website that automatically plays sound, I run across an opera company website, where I am treated to an excerpt of Cosi Fan Tutte; or a hunger relief agency website, where an advocacy video plays each time I return to the homepage; or an animal shelter, where the menu items bark and mew. Thankfully I have yet to encounter a victims of domestic violence assistance website which makes noise, because that would be dangerous (e.g. “Welcome to our website, brave surviver. Be careful not to seek help on this website from your home computer, now, y'hear ?”).

Opera Company: I can tell by the name of your website, and the beautiful images of costumed singers, that you guys really know how to deliver some World-class Opera. I don't need to hear the singing when I visit your page. If I'm an opera fan, I might already be listening to Opera using my computer, or a nearby phonograph, when I visit your website, which would make for some very confusing listening. I might be using your website to look up your phone number so I can order tickets by phone, I don't have time for the ring cycle when I'm trying to ring you up. Your website should remain tacet while I conduct this business. I'll press the play button if I want to hear a sample.

Hunger Relief Agency: I often have several websites open in tabs, and might not even be looking at your page at the moment. I might have decided, “Oh, I'll read about these 10 worthy nonprofits mentioned in this newspaper article about hunger, which I'm still not quite finished reading”, only to be surprised that one or two of those pages started emitting sounds. My response is to frantically close pages until the sound stops. Trust me, more people will look at the video if you let them play it when they are ready to watch it.

Animal Shelter: Great, now my dog is awake and barking at my laptop.

Since 2006 OpenSourcery has enjoyed working a wonderful client: the Moloka'i Community Service Council, MCSC. I met Karen Holt, the executive director, in 2005 through PSU as we were working with EZ Wireless to help them design and implement a city-wide wireless network in Kaunakakai, Hawaii (island of Moloka'i).

In addition to helping them with their wifi networking, we also went in and overhauled their IT systems in 2006. Improvements included new Cisco switches replacing hubs, cleaning up DNS off their internal "local.com" Windows domain to djbdns, and a migration off Microsoft Exchange to Zimbra. Their local IT staff were also interested in learning Linux and the number of Ubuntu hosts has only gone up with plans to migrate off the Windows 2003 server for file and print sharing.

Back on the email front, Zimbra provides tools to migrate Outlook PST files on local storage, and connect directly to an Exchange server to scoop up mail and address books. Given Karen's 10GB mailbox, Outlook had to go and the migration tools worked as advertised.

Two years later Zimbra has gone through multiple upgrades and added many useful features. It has even survived an acquisition by Yahoo. This week completes a final migration to a dedicated server off VMware (due to increased usage), and an upgrade from 4.5.7 to 5.0.8.

MCSC helps the local community through programs including: an elementary and high school education program, educational scholarships, a mental illness center, a commercial kitchen, brownfield cleanup, at-risk family assistance, and the latest project: the Moloka'i Ranch Purchase.

The island of Moloka'i has the highest percentage of foreign land ownership in Hawaii. This ownership has put profits ahead of environmental and cultural sustainability.

MCSC is leading a new global campaign to purchase the ranch to begin restoration and preservation of Hawaii's last native lands.

More information can be found on their website:
http://molokai.org/

An good article articulating how well Moloka'i fights outside influence, and won against a Molokai Ranch development project:
http://tinyurl.com/6fauxp [nytimes.com]