This blog article is brought to you jointly by the Department of Web Communications and the Department of Things That Deborah Doesn't Understand.

Here's the situation:  I'm working on an exciting project with a highly esteemed nonprofit client.  The project requires me to make contact with a lot of nonprofit advocacy organizations across the U.S.   This means that I'm visiting a lot of dot.org web sites, in search of a page that has information about how to contact the nonprofit organization's staff.

So far, so good. However, I'm noticing three rather disturbing trends in how nonprofit advocacy groups structure their web sites:

  • The web page that contains the names and titles of the staff doesn't have any contact information.

  • The web page that contains the organization's contact information doesn't provide any staff information.

  • Neither the contact page nor the staff page contains the name of the organization.

I feel so bad for both these organizations and their stakeholders.  How many opportunities to connect are lost, because it's an arduous task to find out how to make off line contact with the organization or to figure out the appropriate person on staff to approach?  Aren't the cardinal rules of web usability "don't make me think" and "don't make me work hard"?

I realize that my personal difficulty in piecing together an advocacy group's contact information from its web site will not really make anyone lose sleep.  Therefore, I'd like to ask these groups to consider a slightly different scenario: 

Imagine that a new donor decides to send your nonprofit advocacy organization a big check to support your work. She uses paper checks, and she sends them via the postal service. She gets out her checkbook, goes to your web site, and has so much trouble pulling together your organization's legal name, its mailing address, and the name of the development officer to whom it should be directed that she gives up in disgust.  Not only is she baffled, but she also comes away with a vague notion that your organization is difficult to deal with, inconsiderate of stakeholders' needs, or simply clueless about presenting itself. 

Do you really want to be that organization?  I can't imagine why any nonprofit would.




By the way, I like making up statistics about various nptech phenomena.  Here's my latest batch of totally fabricated numbers.


What visitors are thinking, when they go to your nonprofit organization's web site:

  • 30% are thinking, "Never mind about about your web site.  Just tell me how to contact you offline."  (E.g., What is your fax number? what is your street address? What is your executive director's phone number?"


  • 30% are thinking, "Never mind about your web site.  Just answer my question." (E.g., Is tonight's meeting called off because of inclement weather?  Where do I go to download that free report?  Am I eligible to receive your services? Who is on staff? How do I make a donation?)


  • 30% are thinking, "Never mind about your web site.  Just help me figure out whether your organization is legitimate." (E.g., Do I know any of your board members? How long have you been around?  Who are your partners?  How are you funded?)


  • 9% are thinking, "Never mind about your web site. Just point me to an online community that cares about or is dealing with the same issues that I am." (E.g., Where's the community discussion? Where's the community news? How do I post about what I need, or what resources I can offer?)


  • 1% are thinking, "Whatever."  (E.g., No, I don't mind watching a three minute video with loud music that I can't skip, every single time that I visit your web site.)

When I'm advising nonprofit organizations about their web strategies, I like to point out that you can serve 99% of your site's visitors and stakeholders by providing the first four items (or offering direct links to these items) on every page.*  Very few people are coming to your web site just to browse randomly, or to see what new widgets you've embedded in it, or to work through your concept of information management.  They want to see all the information that they're seeking, preferably on a single page, and without having to click more than once.


*  According to my admittedly spurious statistics.