 Say welcome and thank you so much to all of you for joining us today either live or for the recording because this will be available to you in perpetuity on the American nonprofit academies archive. So we are going to talk a little bit about telling your story through your website and Steph Davis has joined us for that as has Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm Jared ransom, you're nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group, and we continued to be grateful and so appreciative to our presenting sponsors, each and every one of these companies exist for one main purpose and that's for you to help you forward your mission throughout your community and to help you do more good so if you have not checked out those companies and the sponsors please do make sure that you do that. And again today we have stuff Davis CEO and web designer with stuff Davis web solutions, joining us today. Welcome. Thank you. We're really excited to have you with us. Tell our viewers again where you're coming to us from. I am calling in from Friberg main, which is on along the New Hampshire border. Okay, well super cool, we have viewers from all over the country, actually internationally as well. And this is a great discussion to have with you because, as we were talking about in the chat chat day stuff with you that, you know, we need to be looking at what our normal cohort used to look like and that's what one of the things that the pandemic has led us to, I think, in many many ways, be more open to different people that could be working with us. But they might just not be sitting in the cubicle next to us. So this is really a cool discussion to have with you to have you share with us your genius and what you're seeing. So first and foremost, can you really empower a nonprofit with a website that I mean they just like got to ask that question right off the bat. Yeah. I mean, just like all businesses need websites but every goal of a nonprofit organization is obviously different your missions are different, but you need to be able to connect to your donors or your community. You know, do you, are you just trying to collect donations so that you can then put it out into the community to support to complete your mission. Do you instead, you know, bring members into host events and you know, educate your members in that way. Do you need volunteers, you know, there's lots of different things that a nonprofit needs from the public to be able to run and support your mission and with a well designed website. Everybody can find you easily. It's clear concise someone comes to your website. They know exactly what they're supposed to be doing when they get to your website they can easily find out who you are. I know I'm sure everyone has been to that one website that all you want to do is find the hours that the stores are open or an email address or a phone number. Basic things and it's like why can I not find this. Right. So if you have a website that you love that is designed to meet your brand that people can go and be like, Oh yes, I see you're raising money to give kids lunch at school or you are trying to educate, you know, women of color or, you know, whatever you're trying to do, they can come quickly see what it is, and then know exactly how they can support what you're doing. Become a member so that they can receive those services that you're trying to that you're working to provide. So stuff I'm curious if you do this, mostly through the narrative so through the content or if you do it with the photos to tell more of the story. What is that best balance. So it's a mixture photos are extremely important. They. I've been to websites where the they're using the wrong photos and you I completely misunderstood what their mission was just because they were using the wrong photos. Yeah, it was very confusing. I was so surprised when I found out what they actually did I was like, Oh, didn't get that. You also want to remember that everybody that's on your website. They're on your website for like 30 seconds, if that to decide if they're going to stay and do more. Or 10 seconds probably even and or, you know, if they're no not interested so photos capture the image capture them very quickly and be like yes this is what I want to do this is who I want to support. And then with your text, you know, you need the narrative you need people people want to know you. So you need to have that narrative there, but again, they're going to be there quick and easy. So you need to have bullet points, you know, headings on your things so that they can just skim through your site and know what you're trying to accomplish. You know part that you just described that I totally agree because I think, you know how we communicate in the narrative for the nonprofit sector. So many of us are used to writing things for grants or for proposals or for reports and we tend to be much more verbose, and we don't use the bullet point mentality that I think you'd need to have when you're communicating on the web. I'm wondering if we can draw drill this down even further about the usage of smartphones and somebody coming to your website through their their mobile device and then how that changes the experience even more. Yes, definitely. And you have to make sure your website is optimized for mobile viewing, like, and as again, I'm sure everyone's been on to a website that is not. You know, like you can't stay on it you just need like you don't do anything. So you need to think it's not just that they're scrolling on their computer they're scrolling on their phone so if you don't have things bolded and clear and concise, at least initially, they're not going to stay. And you want them to stay because if they don't stay they're not going to donate the money they're not going to join the event that you have coming up they're not going to do whatever. So you need to have like, even just things like if you read blogs you see this like you'll just have like one line pulled out so it's like captures the attention or one or two sentence a sentence or half of a sentence bolded and larger so oh yes this is what I'm trying to do those bullet points the numbering you know you're just always thinking skim reading this is not a grant. You don't you want to have the basic information on there have on your website, depending on what you're trying like more of what you're trying to do on the website, you know there is a place to have it more detailed and have that information out there for people, but your initial thoughts and design need to be very clear and concise so that nobody gets lost they can quickly see what they're trying you want them to do. So let me ask a follow up question to that then. Are you advocating that we should design for phones first and desktop second, or what's your thought on that. I don't think so I think I think you just need to be aware of both users. I think, especially photos if you have the photos on there if you catch their attention and have something longer to read there's a good chance they might go and open it on their desktop and read it there. You know they're in the middle of work, and they click a link and you know they're on their desktop so you need to have it in both places, but you need to then just make sure that it looks correct and is easy on the eyes and easy to see on all devices. One of the things that I know many of us have experienced during the last 18 months is that our reach has expanded so whether individuals have taken the opportunity to move and relocate, but I've heard from a lot of nonprofit companies that their constituency base is no longer just local like it's really expanded. I think some of that is attributed to many virtual opportunities of connection, whether it's a meeting a webinar or even an event that they you know went virtual many nonprofits have attracted donors or constituents from all over and so that is something I think that we want to consider and really that website is the main vehicle. And so that that is the main vehicle of communication. So stuff how do you suggest that a nonprofit communicates their mission and vision to this broad scope of constituency using the website. I think I'm going to end up repeating a lot of already said because it's just not important. But first of all, I think before you even invest in somebody like paying somebody to your website, because there are many ways to get a website built but before you say okay we are going to hire a designer and developer and have them build it. You need to know your brand down to a T you need to know exactly who you want on your site. When they get to the website. What do they want to do. What do you want them to do with out that information. You know what fonts do you want to use, you know, if you are trying to attract donors that are doctors, you're going to use very different fonts than if you're trying to, you know, entice, say high schoolers, you know, you need to have an image of that website and the layout and design of that website is going to be completely different. Because those people and it doesn't matter what you want. You have to remember you want it, you need to do your donors, or your members who are coming to that site. Before you even spend the money, put a lot of investment money and time into that is you need to know exactly what your mission is, and what you want people to do on the website. Once you're there, once you have that, then, you know, your designer would say, Okay, you want people to donate so donate buttons here we're going you just spread them out organically through the website, you know, so that people know where what you want them to do you have a clear navigation your menu at the top is very clearly labeled you want to do this. One of my friends that I have talked to a website designed about and she's like, you know, it's not even like saying, contact me, like if you want them to contact, because that could mean anything. You wanted to say, email us, join become a member like, you know those quick terminologies again, people are going to be on your site for 10 seconds 30 seconds. If you think about how you're processing information when you go to other sites, you don't stay on websites for very long. Even if it's somewhere you want to be. And so you need to be make sure that when that person comes to your website, they one can quickly and easily find out what you do, and how you do it. You know, and then know exactly what you want them to accomplish while they're there. I'm curious and again I know you're a web designer so I don't mean any ill will on this. If an if an individual spends such little time on a website. Do we really need one. I mean, again, it's like, and a second, a second part to this question is how many pages should we have right like are we really just looking to capture someone's attention to take action. And what is that action and so do we need a landing page or do we need like 15 pages. Again, no ill will I have a website everyone has a website, but if people aren't reading, and they're only spending such a short amount of time. What does that look like. Yeah, so I'm going to use I am the Vice President of the nonprofit called women in restoration engineering. And I've managed the website for a number of years there we are goal is to provide education and networking opportunities for women in the construction and engineering design industry so architects engineers trades women, like those are our members and who we are reaching out to. What we do this is we have events. So we've gone through multiple stages of this but you know right now they're all virtual we have, which has been fun like you said, you know, I have people I'm in Maine. I just did a webinar a couple weeks ago, and I was in Maine, my three panelists to earn Boston and one was in Cincinnati, we had people calling in from California and all of this stuff and we had this amazing discussion it was so much fun. You know we've worked through our website techniques and everything and so when people wanted to sign up for that website, or for that webinar, they went right to our website, and checked out right on there in the past so like the social media links all links went right to one specific site. Anyways, you can hodgepodge things together, but that means they go from the social media posts, they go to your website, they get redirected to event right or something else and then might be kicked out to PayPal to pay for it. So, at what point, you know, at what point do you lose people, like you have too many steps. They're going to lose those people because again, they're, they want to be in and out they're like okay I'm going to do this this sounds great and then, you know, or a link is broken because you've got four links that they have to go to or whatever. It just gets too complicated laughing because absolutely that has happened to me and it's like, oh my gosh. Right, you want to collect donations. You can design it have a website that you do it right there. Maybe it opens up a little pop up to finish things in PayPal, but you don't have to send them all over the internet to try and do what you're trying to want them to do. You might be trying to collect donations and volunteers so you have one place that you can send everybody to meet everything and then, you know, within that website you can redirect them to specific things so if you're wanting to do it. Volunteers you sign up here if you want to donate you to go to this link. It also gives you the benefits of the SEO elements and all of that thing so you show up in Google searches so maybe someone doesn't know you, but they want to support I'm going to bring this up again kids, you know help kids buy lunches at school. So they can search for that, and then because of the SEO and because you have a website that will come up. If you just have Facebook and a random email list, you're not going to show up to these new potential donors. Very important. You have any things to think about and you know I know many nonprofit leaders that they manage their own website or the website for their organization internally but as you said you know there's also like yourself and others you know web designers. I'm curious though how often we should be in there making changes updates maybe adding a new page or moving a page. And I'm thinking in particular because it's you know q for end of your fundraising there's a lot going on when it comes to outreach and communication. What are some of your best practices that you implement with your clients in regards to website updates and or changes. Yeah. So, um, you know this is all based upon every organization what you're trying to accomplish. If you basically are using it as a landing page, you know, you can have your vision and mission and call to action clearly done on one single page if that's how you want to do it. And in that case, you know every month or two you should just go in and check and make sure your plugins are all up to date and that your website is backing up correctly and because you don't want that to crash like that's your, your lifeline to the rest of the world in so many ways so you don't want that to crash. So like that's the bare minimum of just checking that which is very simple to do it doesn't take much, you could easily have somebody, you know, on in the organization doing that or you could pay somebody if you want more. If you're doing a bigger fundraiser you quite possibly have a blog so you know for SEO purposes every month or so or two times a month you should be putting a new blog up. Well then when you're in there you can check the other stuff. You know, making sure you have events up to date, you know, okay you did an event you have pictures you should be up to have a place where pictures from the past events are there so people don't just see that you have something next week but they see that you've had this, you know, for the past three years and they can look at those photos and see oh my gosh look at all of those people doing all of this stuff this is a lot of fun. We I want to do this and just have that social evidence that you have done this you are making a difference. I love that you said that because I think that's a missing link for a lot of us when we market our nonprofits and we can talk about the future but I think it is important to talk about the past, and especially when you're looking at maybe deeper conversations such as sponsorships, investors, that is an important piece to help communicate your stability, the level with which you perform the things that you do, even in the case of who showed up. You know what community leaders were with you, you know, other influencers to that degree. I think that needs to be on there. But I love what Jared said and going back to that piece of that quick visit and yet we're putting so much time and money into our websites if that true visit is so short. Doesn't that reframe how we're using these websites. Yeah, I think, you know you need to remember who you're there who was supposed to be there who you're sending to your website. Who you're trying to attract and, you know, and then what you want them to do. And if you don't know what those are, you're not going to have a successful website, and if those aren't clear, you're not going to have a successful website and no matter if your investment in that website is the time of one of your board members to build it and buy it from scratch, or if you're paying somebody thousands of dollars to design it, you know from scratch and custom build it. If you don't have that clear, then people aren't going to visit or they're going to visit and leave and they're not going to do it and you're not going to gain anything out of having this website except having a website. You know if it's not properly designed to attract your potential visitors. You know you're not going to get anything out of that investment. Well that's one of the things is you know how much time because again many of us are creating our budgets now moving forward. What is this cost and time to create a nonprofit website I know that there's websites that have so many bells and whistles and there is so many now that will say you know with artificial intelligence. Let me help you create your website pick the template and the font and pick the, you know, like your branding and so you can say here's my top four photos, kind of enter all of this information in and then literally with a push of a button I might have done this before stuff like, I don't know let's just see what this website looks like you know. Um, so how much should we be thinking about yeah as we allocate our budgets. Yeah, so this is going to, I'm not going to really answer the question I'll come out I will give a wide range, but there are so many amazing web designers out there that will not only, you know, they might provide they have templates that they just plug in your information like you were coming across, they plug in your information, and they do it and you know you can have websites like their women and men out there that do it in a day. You'll have a website done you pay, which is awesome. There's also people that personally for me, I go in and you know we have many calls to make sure we know exactly what your nonprofits mission vision is who you're working for everything that I've already mentioned today to make sure that your website is custom designed just for you know, no one's going to have that website again it's going to be the most attractive to who you're trying to reach out to and all of that stuff there's things that you can add on there's events. Plugins that you can have again to register directly how you do donates, collecting contact information for your email list to keep in touch with all of those donors and potential donors. There's so many things that you can think of there's, you can have membership sites so members can pay extra and just, you know, they have this closed site that only they can do. So, obviously, those can get very detailed and can take, you know, three months. You also have to remember the time that for that three months, you need to go into it with your copy done all of your branding done your logo done you everything set up to ready to go there's going to be back and forth there's going to be changes. But if you don't have that done. It's going to take much longer and it's not going to be a good experience for your organization or the web designer because it's just going to sit stagnant for months on end. Unless you have somebody that's doing the copywriting or whatever there's lots of people you can bring in to help that. So, you know, you could have a website done for like $500 based on a template, you know, quickly done, you could be paying upwards of $15,000 for all of these other elements brought in. But before you look for somebody you really need to be like, this is what I, we want that membership site it is very important to us that our members have a private space to get information that we can host virtual events that we can do whatever. You know what, I don't have a ton of information that I need to share we've got like three board members and that's our whole organization. I only need a page, I just need one page that gives all of the brief rundown of what we're trying to do. Again, you can work with web designers to talk out on what you need, you know, homepage about page contact events and trying to think and then making sure you have a place to donate or whatever. Like those are kind of the basics that you need. You can do it in one page you can do it in four pages. You can spread it all out. You have press releases you want to make sure your advertising you have a blog and do I use this the basic template that comes with WordPress or whatever platform you're using or do I have this custom design that works just for us kind of thing. Sorry to interrupt I was gonna say I think it's important to say that just because you've launched a website or you've changed a website doesn't mean that that's the end all be all that it is a constant evolution. And, you know, so if you start with a page great. And then if you want to add several more pages or as you continue to evolve as an organization or throughout the year, you can still go back to that website but I think it's very important. One of the things that I've said stuff is to really know your audience and to know your brand because those are two really really big, I believe, as successful elements as you continue to empower your, your organization through the website so thank you for everything that you've done with us your, your time is valuable your expertise is so needed in our community. Again, we may not spend a lot of time on a website but it is still proven to be a very critical vehicle so thank you so much stuff. Thank you for this information. Make sure you reach out to her. I really loved. One of the takeaways for me in our conversation was how much the web designers are not going to be there to save us that we have to show up prepared, knowing what it is that we want to do that the web designer is going to help us navigate that. I think, you know, the big takeaway for me is that we need to be prepared and, and to work through this with the designer, you're not just going to show up at work one day and the website is going to be done. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that would be even if you do like a one day turnaround thing with, you know, one of the web designers that provides it, you have to have everything ready before that day, like if, if you don't have the photos picked out, they can build the website. It doesn't, it doesn't work. I love it. Well stuff this has been great. I think it was a great time of the year for us to revisit this conversation as so many of us going to that final push for our year and boy what a year it's been our websites are really a big part of how we communicate. And so this is a discussion that we need to be staying up with. If you want to hear Steph's information, check her out. I think you'll like what you find. Again, I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy even joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared ransom, thank you so much to all of our sponsors. Without you, we would not be here having this robust discussion so we say, we say thank you thank you thank you very much. Hey, Jared. What do we like to say every day when we end the show. Absolutely, you know, you said, you know, over the last year, what a year it's been and gosh what a two year stint you really have been in and so it's so important but yes, since our very first episode we sign off every single episode now coming up on 400 episodes to please stay well. So you can do well. Thank you so much. And we appreciate your time stuff we'll see everybody else again tomorrow have