Web Policies for Nonprofits, NGOs and Small Government Offices

Revised with new information as of January 6, 2014

Web Policies for Nonprofits, NGOs & Small Government Offices

Staff Input and Involvement

Department heads at your organization should have as much involvement with the approval of the Web site design and content as they do with the your organization's brochure and other major print materials. Your Web site is going to be used by potential volunteers, donors, clients, and the general public -- not just one audience -- and, as I've said again and again in these pages, that means a variety of staff, paid and volunteer, need to be involved in its creation and upkeep.

For both the initial site and all changes and additions to the Web site afterwards, the system for generating information and approving Web site information should follow the same system you use for creating season brochures, direct mail campaigns, and other printed material. For instance, a theatre might choose this approval method:

Page Page Approval Category Before Public Access

Page Category		Page Approval Before Public Access
Tickets Sales		Marketing Director Audience Services Manager
Main Information		Marketing Director Director of Development Press and Public Relations Representative
Education and Outreach Services		Director of Education Press and Public Relations Representative

However, everyone in the administrative offices should have the opportunity to review these pages.

An easy way to allow your board members and selected others who are not in your office but whom you would like to see the site before it becomes public is to go through a "beta" test for the site; this means that you put the pages "online", but you don't release the address of those pages publicly. Only people who know the address can access the pages.

Web Site Policies

You have many policies to consider for your Web site, relating to:

design
accessibility
security
content, including links to other sites
upkeep
gathering and using email addresses and other user information

Information on formulating policies for most of these areas is on the page you are reading now. In addition, also see these design standards for you to consider, and review these suggestions regarding maintenance of your Web site, for additional Web site standard suggestions.

To Link or Not to Link

As soon as you launch the Web site, you will get requests from various organizations asking you to link to their Web site from yours. Many of these requests may not be appropriate, so having a policy in writing re: to whom you will link on your site will make it easier for you to say "no" when you have to.

For instance, if you were at a dance company in Kentucky, you could set a policy that the agency's Web site link only to:

sites that are related to other performing arts organizations in Kentucky
sites that encourage support for the dance and other performing arts
sites that educate about dance

You should post whatever link criteria you decide on to your Web site. The criteria page could state:

An organization with a Web address will be considered for a 'hot link' from the agency's Web site if it is at least one of the following:

Then list the aforementioned bulleted items, as you have customized them to fit your own organization. The criteria page should also state a disclaimer, such as

Links to other Web sites are located throughout the agency's Web Site; link placement depends on the relation of the link with the nature of the agency's Web Site .html page. Approval and placement of links is at the discretion of the Huntington.

Requests for links will mostly come to you via email.

Some funders may ask you for a link off of your home page. Consider this carefully. Links to other organizations on your home page will drive a lot of traffic off of your site before the visitor ever views much of your site at all, and these visitors probably won't come back. Instead, for such scenarios, create a page that recognizes and details the organizations that fund you - you can create a link from your home page to THAT page. And that secondary page can then link to the company's web sites.

A friend who serves on the board of a performing arts nonprofit organization asked me, "Aren't more links a better thing?" I answered absolutely NOT, for many reasons:

The more links you have off your site, the more reasons you give people to leave the site.
You are not going to want a reciprocal link from every organization that asks for one, because some will NOT be appropriate for your organization to link to. If you can give people an idea of what kind of sites you are looking to link to, you won't get dozens of requests from people you DON'T want to link to.
In the case of many nonprofits, one of the perks for sponsors are links to their site from the nonprofit site. The more links you allow from non-sponsors, the more you devalue what sponsors get for their sponsorship/donation.

If you want to turn this advice around, to use in asking other organizations to link to your site, see:

A friend of mine said, "Why does everyone put the Microsoft Internet Explorer logo on their home page? Microsoft isn't paying you for it!"

It's true!! "Built with whatever." Who cares?! The whole point of the Internet is to reach a lot of people quickly and easily! Most users DO NOT care what latest and greatest toys you use -- they want to see what you do with those toys.

Yes, I do note on some pages what kind of computer I used to build the original Coyote Communications Web site. But it's not an advertisement for Apple -- it's to show that a lot can be done with just a little technology, contrary to what computer sales people will tell you. Computers are a lot like your brain -- people seldom use them to their full potential.

Security

Who will have access to the server to upload documents? It is recommended that only one staff person have this access, although one or two other staff members should understand how to do it as well, just in case the main person is absent and cannot make a needed change or addition immediately. If multiple people are going to be uploading information to your site, explore the option of assigning each person a different area of the Web site to manage, and giving each person access to different directories.

Email Recommendations

The "main" email address should be checked at least three times every day by the same person on your staff every day. This person should be someone who regularly interacts with the public already and understands how to forward inquiries to others as appropriate. For example, check your email:

9 - 10 a.m. (staff arrives)
1 - 2 p.m. (after lunch)
4 - 5 p.m. (before most staff leaves for the day)

Also recommended is the following criteria:

Each message received by email should get a reply immediately, so the sender knows the email has been received. A response could be something like:
The appropriate staff person can then answer the sender from his or her own email account at their earliest convenience.
Create a file of "standard" replies, so that information given out is uniform. These replies would probably be similar to the answers to your FAQs (frequently asked questions).
At the end of every email should be a "signature" indicating the replier's name, position or department, along with the email address and World Wide Web site address. For instance:

Gathering and Using Email Addresses and Other User Information

Will your organization use the email addresses of people who respond to your Web survey to contact those users in the future? Do you get a report that generates the email addresses of every visitor to your site? How is this information used by your organization? Do you sell, trade or give this information away to any other agency?

To ensure your organization's credibility, and to make your marketing and outreach activities something positive rather than something that makes people mad, it is very important for your agency to create a user privacy policy, and to post this policy on your Web site. Have a look at other organization's privacy policies and determine which might be best to adapt for your organization.

As Your Web Site Gets More Advanced, So Will These Policies

Remember: this page, and this entire section of my web site, is about creating and maintaining a BASIC web presence. As your web site grows, and as more advanced features are added, your web policies are going to have to evolve. What shouldn't change: that every program manager and department head has influence regarding content on the web site, and directs that content. If the section of the web site regarding volunteerism isn't serving the person in charge of recruiting and involving volunteers, then the web site is NOT living up to its potential!

Also see:

Monetizing a Web Site - Should Nonprofits, NGOs or Government Agencies Ever Do It?

For more tips on web policies and online security for mission-based organizations, visit TechSoup.

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