By Barkha Sethi:
With the emerging trend of everything being electronic (e-) or online; donations or charity have also been molded in same. People now ask for charity with their non- profit Websites or charity websites. This has made  it easier for the public to donate. To attract more donors, a website has to be designed specifically. Below are some points:
2. A mission Or cause-Â Everything else leads back to one’s website’s purpose and goals. The website goals should be clearly mentioned to the reader so they know why and where they are donating. It could include converting visitors to members, providing info about existing members, building your email newsletter, building awareness, and collecting donations.
3. Reader friendly-Â As mentioned before the website should be user friendly so that the people can easily access to the website without much problems. The layout design should be consistent throughout the site, the menu should be easy to use, the text easy to read, and links easy to identify.
4. Contribution of the donators-Â Let your users know what you do with their money once they donate. They’ll want to know how they’re making a difference in someone’s life. Also this will promote them to donate further and influence others too to donate.
5. Photos and videos-Â A website with more readable material is the past. Now everyone in their busy lives wants everything fast and clear. So, a charity website should post photos of their organizations, their works, the change in someone’s life, videos of their existing members, their experience etc. This would make the website more interesting and truthful at some point.
6. Credibility of the website-Â It is difficult to believe anything on internet. Thus, one has to convince the visitors for their contributions to donate to one’s website. To convince them of your legitimacy, supply a business address, contact details, regularly updated content of what the charity is currently doing and make good use of design.
7. Donate button-Â The donate button is most likely the most important asset of a charity website so it should be prominent and obvious. This is the ultimate end goal for users. It should be easily available to users to use it.
8. Keep in touch-Â Sponsors will want you to keep in touch as they now have a vested interest, so make sure they are up to date. Let people sign up and send them an occasional newsletter about what the charity is up to. This will also be helpful when it comes to looking for future donations.
9. Design of website-Â The design of the website should be convincing and impressive to the visitors so they are convinced to at least surf your website for once. You should focus on using more relevant pictures, graphs, videos, visuals, slide shows, etc. as it will encourage people to donate to your website. Also you should use good colors combination as it plays a major role in taking people to your website and use it.
I hope that these tips will definitely help and are useful for the charity websites. Thinking about something is the first step, implementing on it is another and continuing that with best efforts is the most difficult step but the most important step is how to implement what we think.
References: www.webdesignerdepot.com and www.thedrum.co.uk