Twenty One Recommendations and Related Web-Resources
Final Report of
“Towards Capacity Development in Non-Profit Agencies”
February 2006
Leslie Bella
Research Professor,
School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Developed in Collaboration with the Following Organizations
Aids Committee of Newfoundland and Labrador (ACNL) at www.acnl.net
Newfoundland Sexual Health Centre (formerly Planned Parenthood Newfoundland
and Labrador) at http://nlsexualhealthcentre.org/
Senior’s Resource Centre of Newfoundland Labrador at www.seniorsresource.ca
Stella Burry Corporation at www.stellaburry.ca
Bereavement Association at http://hcssjr.ca/basi
Newfoundland and Labrador Sexual Assault and Crisis Prevention Centre at
www.sexualassault.nf.ca
Women Interested in Successful Employment (WISE) at www.nfld.net/wise
Researchers:
Heather St. Croix, Val Mitchelmore, Wilma MacInnis, Judy Morgan,
all professional social workers and MSW students at
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) with
funding available under the Initiatives in the New Economy Initiative (INE)
We welcome feedback to lbella@tcc.on.ca on this document,
which we hope will be helpful.
Our thanks go to all those who participated in this project.
Specific Appendices are available upon request.
Project Summary
We worked with seven small health and wellness oriented non-profit organizations
serving Newfoundland and Labrador, in a collaborative research project:
1.
To build a more effective tool for evaluating and improving the web presence
of small non-profit organization, building on a tool developed by Act4Health
for evaluating health oriented websites (Petch, 2004).
The result is the Website Evaluation Tool and associated Website Evaluation Tool
Guidelines (St. Croix, Mitchelmore, Morgan, MacInnis and Bella, 2005). These were
further revised as a result of our experience in using them with seven non-profit
organizations and are now available for use by to non-profit organizations from
lbella@tcc.on.ca, or from http://www.sfu.ca/act4hlth. They also form Appendix A and
B of this final report.
2.
Use the Website Evaluation Tool and associated Website Evaluation Tool
Guidelines (St. Croix, Mitchelmore, Morgan, MacInnis and Bella, 2005) to
evaluate the internet presence of the seven collaborating organizations, and
provide the organizations with feedback on ways to make their websites more
effective.
In fall 2005 all seven participating organizations received an individualized report
evaluating their website, and suggesting means making their web presence more
effective. This report address some of the issues raised in these evaluations, with concrete
suggestions for solutions.
3.
Summarize common weaknesses (and strengths) of the internet presence of
seven non-profit organizations, and use the expertise of Act4Health to develop
a strategy that might help non-profit agencies to increase the effectiveness of
their web presence.
In fall 2005 we presented our findings to the sixth conference of the Canadian Rural
Health Research Society in Quebec City, and to an associated Theme 1 meeting of
Act4Health. The Background notes for this presentation form Appendix C to this report,
and the Power Point presentation is available as Appendix D. The conference
presentation attracted the attention Katherine Fredericks of the Canadian Health Network,
and resulted in negotiations which may make the tool available to some of the health
agencies that have not met their quality standards.
As a result of Theme 1 discussions of this project, our project has investigated online
resources that may assist non-profit organizations wanting to improve their web
presence.1 In this final report includes our twenty two recommendations for the
1
Our thanks to Samantha Burdett and to Suzanne Brake for guiding us to some of the relevant information
sources.
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participating organizations, and information about resources that we hope will help them
address our recommendations. We hope they will also be helpful for other small health
and wellness non-profit organizations seeking to improve their web-presence.
Methodology
In spring 2005 Heather St.Croix recruited seven organizations, and amended the Petch
tool to reflect their concerns and clarify the tool itself. She then trained Judy Morgan,
Wilma MacInnis and Valerie Mitchelmore in its use. Each of the seven sites was then
evaluated independently by at least two members of the team, and three if the site was
more complex. Those evaluating a particular site met to compare the findings, and to
prepare a report to the participating organization. Then the entire team met to identify
issues facing most or all of these organizations in terms of their web presence, and to
prepare a report for the conference and workshop presentations in Quebec City. At this
meeting some final amendments were made to the tool itself, resulting in the documents
which form Appendix A and B to this report. Valerie Mitchelmore and Leslie Bella
presented in Quebec, and Leslie Bella has drawn together resources to complete this finl
report.
Our evaluation addressed four areas:
1. The purpose and content of the site, including internal consistency
2. The target audience and appropriateness to that audience
3. Accessibility in terms of required literacy, ease of navigation, and search engine
placement.
4. Credibility, including currency, identified and credentialed information sources
and available reference lists.
Table 1 lists our twenty one recommendations for participating organizations based on
our evaluation. Our concerns fall into two categories. The first category concerns the
need for a more clearly focused purpose for organizational websites, and the need for
organizations who develop websites to see them in the context of the organization’s
overall mission. We have suggested that participating organizations commit some
organizational resources to considering these issues. The second category of issues are
of a more technological nature, mostly concerned with accessibility. For these we have
provided resources which will assist staff and volunteers to produce more accessible
websites. We have draw upon the resources available through Act4Health and other
sources to give non-profit organizations the information we think they will need to
consider, and if appropriate to adopt our recommendations.
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Table 1: Twenty Two Recommendations
Recommendation 1: All pages on the site should include the organization’s contact
information (telephone and fax numbers, street addresses, email address).
Recommendation 2: All websites should include the organization’s mission.
Recommendation 3: A “Website Committee” should be responsible for reviewing and
maintaining the site.
Recommendation 4: The organization should work to use the web to provide and
enhance services as well as describe them.
Recommendation 5: At least two people should be responsible for updating timesensitive website content.
Recommendation 6: Make updating Easy.
Recommendation 7: Link to services of all levels of government as well as nongovernment agencies.
Recommendation 8: Link to “portals” to a broader range of health and other services.
Recommendation 9: Use tools to evaluate readability before posting new content.
Recommendation 10: Use Plain Language.
Recommendation 11: Links to “Home” should be included on every page.
Recommendation 12: Remove links that prevent you from returning to your original
site.
Recommendation 13: Use a standard set of buttons to key parts of your site.
Recommendation 14: A site map is also a helpful addition to your website.
Recommendation 15: Consider more additions to improve the navigability.
Recommendation 16: Help search engines (eg. Google) find you by adding Metatags to
your site.
Recommendation 17: Register with Search Engines.
Recommendation 18: Support your Website with Paper Based Promotion.
Recommendation 19: Track your Success with a Counter:
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Recommendation 20:Acknowledge Authors and Sources:
Recommendation 21:Reference sources of to Online Information:
Resources for Acting on our Recommendations
Section 1: Content and Purpose
1. We found that some organizations’ websites did not include a statement of
organizational mission. In some cases there was a conflict between the mission
of the organization and some of the site content or content in links form the site.
These inconsistencies were brought to the attention of the organizations. We also
found that some organizations did not appear to have a clear purpose in
developing their sites, which appeared to be little more than an on-line bill board
for the organizations’ services. Some sites were not used to extend services to
those who might not be near enough to visit its premises.
Recommendation 1: Most websites appeared to have the purpose of an on line brochure
providing information about services. Given this reality, all pages of the website should
include contact information for the organization. Telephone and fax numbers and email
addresses are essential, and information can include a link to street address (possibly with
a map, a photo of the building, and parking information.
Recommendation 2: All websites should also include a statement of organizational
mission, approved by the Board of Directors, and directly accessible from the website’s
home page. The AIDS committee website at www.acnl.net has an excellent example.
Recommendation 3: A committee within the organization (hereinafter described as the
“Website Committee”) should be responsible for reviewing the content of the site on a
quarterly basis and ensuring that all content, (including that accessible through links) is
up to date and consistent with organizational mission.
Recommendation 4: The organization should work towards using the web to its full
potential, to provide and enhance services as well as describe them. Features such as
FAQ sections, discussion forums and chat rooms can be adapted to provide on line
services and extend the reach of your organization beyond those who can reach your
offices or services. However, these require considerable investment in creation and
maintenance. We suggest that first your website committee develop “in house” capacity
for updating the website content that you already have.
2. Out-of-date content is a problem on most sites hosted by organizations with
limited resources, such as those we work with. This is particularly evident on
“links” pages (which often become broken), on pages listing “current” events, and
on pages listing staff and volunteer roles. Out-of-date content reduces the overall
credibility of a site and of its sponsoring organization. High quality commercial
sites are up-dated daily – even hourly. This will not be possible for a volunteer
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organization, but should be possible bi-monthly or quarterly. Our following
recommendations should help non-profit organizations with limited resources to
address this problem.
Recommendation 5: At least two people should be identified as responsible for
updating time-sensitive website content (eg.: “current” events, web site links, volunteer
and staff personnel), and given time and training to do this on a bi-monthly or quarterly
basis.
Recommendation 6: Make updating Easy. Time sensitive website content (eg.,
“current” events, web site links, hot topics such as those included on ACNL’s “new”
page http://www.acnl.net/news.shtml, volunteer and staff personnel), should be
contained within easily up-datable web pages. The people identified by your
organization as responsible (preferably all members of your website committee) can
downloaded these files from your website to their own computer using the internet
browser (Internet Explorer. They should highlight the portion of the website to be
updated, and use the “save as” command under “file” in the top tool bar of Internet
Explorer. They should save the file to the same name on their own computer, and open it
using FrontPage (or some similar software). FrontPage is a website editing program from
the Word family, and works just like word processing software. For information about
FrontPage http://www.lib.calpoly.edu/toolbox/apps/FrontPage/front_intro.html They
can use FrontPage to update the page (eg., remove dead links, correction personnel names
and contacts, add and remove current events, change “hot topics”), remembering to save
it to the same file name before the exit Front Page. The updated page can then be
uploaded, again using Internet Explorer but putting ftp://yourwebsiteaddress instead of
http://yourwebsiteaddress to locate your site. They will be asked for an ID and
password, with it they will be able to update the site by uploading the file. If you have an
internet provider who updates your site, just email the file with the updated site to him or
her, and he can upload the revised page to the site for you. Experienced webmistresses
will probably want to download an ftp programme (file transfer protocol) from
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/winscp/winscp370.exe?download
that has more features than available to you using Internet Explorer.
For more advanced training on using HTML to create and manage websites, the
definitive resource is http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/. They have on line tutorials and
many other resources for learning to use the HTML language that creates websites. The
following site also had accessible resources for those wanting to learn how to manage
your web page http://www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/english/index.shtml.
3. “Links” and “links pages” are the way we provide effective information and
referral services on the world wide web. For an effective “links page” see
http://nlsexualhealthcentre.org/links.html. To be effective, your links page
must be regularly updated, and you must check the content of links to make sure
their content is consistent with your organizational mission (see above).
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Recommendation 7: You may want to build a “links”. If so, list relevant links to
information about relevant services of all levels of government (federal, provincial,
regional, municipal) as well as those of non-government agencies. Your website
committee may also want to include a “caution” on you links page saying you are not
responsible for the content in links. Links pages get out of date very quickly, but updating
can be easier with the help of http://www.netmechanic.com/.
Recommendation 8: We also recommend that you include amongst your links the
“portals” or internet gateways to a broader range of health and other services. The
Canadian Health Network at http://canadian-health-network.ca/ is a credible federally
funded portal which links to information about many health services. The portal for
Healthy Newfoundland is available at http://healthy.nf.ca/. Comparable health portals
are available in other Canadian provinces. Government funding ensures that they are
professionally designed, have standards for the links they provide and are updated
continually.
Section 2: Audience
4. Design a site that has an appropriate look for your audience. We found that the
seven sites we evaluated had created a “look” and “feel” appropriate to the
audience.
Section 3: Accessibility
5. All the websites we evaluated required at least a grade 8 education, and some of
them considerably more than that. This is a problem in a province where many
people face literacy challenges. This problem can be addressed by (1) reviewing
any new content with readability statistics, and (2) using what is known in the
trade as “plain language”.
Recommendation 9: Use tools to evaluate readability before posting new content.
The steps for doing this are in the Website Evaluation Tool Guidelines in Appendix B,
and are also reprinted below:
STEP 1: Cut a paste a piece of text from the website into Microsoft Word.
STEP 2. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling &
Grammar Tab.
STEP 2. Select the Check grammar with spelling check box.
STEP 3. Select the Show readability statistics check box, and then click OK.
STEP 4. On the Standard toolbar (toolbar: A bar with buttons and options that you
use to carry out commands. To display a toolbar, click Customize on the Tools
menu, and then click the Toolbars tab.), click Spelling and Grammar
.
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Note: If using word perfect, use the same process with Grammatik.
When Microsoft Word finishes checking spelling and grammar, it works out the “Flesch
Kinkaid Grade Level Score”. This uses the average number of syllables per word and
words per sentence. The score should be below 8. If it is not, use more plain language
(see Recommendation 8).
By the way, the above paragraph scores 7.3 on the Flesch Kinkaid grade level.
Recommendation 10: Use Plain Language: We recommend the on line training session
at http://www.web.net/~plain/PlainTrain/ as a resource for learning to write in “plain
language.” The units on “appropriate words” and “simple sentences” are particularly
helpful. We also caution you against use of passive voice (as in “There are many reasons
for our funding submission compared with “Fund this project because….).
6. Navigation problems result in people getting lost in websites, not finding what
they need, and leaving in frustration. These problems get worse as your website
gets more complex. Over time, your organization will add new information and
new features, and a the website grows incrementally it gets more and more
difficult to navigate. We have listed some recommendations that will help your
site visitors find what they want, and to return to the site next time they are
looking for some information related to your organizational purpose.
Recommendation 11: Links to “Home” should be included on every page, so that
anyone getting lost in the site can try again without beginning their search from scratch.
This is a simple strategy and effectively reduces frustration.
Recommendation 12: When you review links to remove any that are “dead” or
inappropriate, note which ones prevent you from returning to your original site. These
are usually high profile commercial sites, who want to trap you into buying something.
Remove such links from you links page. Simple but effective!
Recommendation 13: Use a standard set of buttons to key parts of your site down the
side or across the top of all the pages on your site, so that you maintain a consistent
identity throughout the site and people can move easily from section to section of the site.
Your website developer will et this up for you, possibly using an HTML feature called
“Cascading Style Sheets” to make sure that every page ends up looking like it belongs in
the same site. The Heterosexism Enquirer (http://www.mun.ca/the) uses Cascading
Style Sheets to maintain a coherent look and a set of buttons on every page.
Recommendation 14: A site map is also a helpful addition to your website, helping
people find specific information on the site. The link to the site map should be from the
home page of the site. The sitemap is like the index to a book. It is simply a list of all the
pages (and sections of pages) on the site, with active links to each page (and to each
section of a page), organized by department and/or alphabetically. And example of the
site map for a health centre’s website can be found at
http://www.stvincent.org/siteinfo/sitemap/default.htm
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Recommendation 15: The following additions can improve the navigability of a
complex website, but will probably require some investment in the services of a web
developer. If you go this route, make sure you can still update time sensitive sections of
the site yourself, without having to hire your web developer for an “updating” contract.
Drop down menus can also be added to help people find subsections of your website.
Drop down menus (like those across the toolbar at the top of you word processing
program) and be helpful in a very complex site. A search feature can also be very helpful
to visitors, if it works properly. It should not require updating every time you add new
features to your site – or it will not help much.
7. Difficulties Finding your website: Although the sites we evaluated can be found
if you know the exact website address, most of the websites we evaluated were
very difficult to find using popular search engines. For example, you had to
include the specific words (such as AIDS for ACNL) as well as “Newfoundland
and Labrador” for these sites to appear in the top ten using Google. One
organization, Women in Search of Employment, was particularly difficult to find
because another organizations (Women in Science and Engineering) has the same
acronym. Most people begin their search for on-line information with a search
engine such as Google, and would be missing potentially useful information in the
websites of the non-profit organizations. We have two kinds of recommendations
for resolving this issue – one technological and one paper based. Suzanne
Sweeney’s work includes excellent advice on attracting visitors to your website.
Her website at http://www.susansweeney.com and her easy to understand books
are full of useful materials.
Recommendation 16: Add Metatags to your site: Search Engines work through
“metatags” and “metalabels” which are descriptors which can be attached to but not
visible on your website. You can check whether there are metatags associated with your
site by clicking on “source” in the drop-down menu under “view” in internet explorer.
The following are examples of metatags from a site intended to support those wanting to
learn how to use the web:
<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>ItrainOnline</TITLE>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-88591">
<META
content="Itrainonline offers links to Internet training resources for trainers
and learners in the NGO community"
name=description>
<META
content="Bellanet, OneWorld, IICD, UNESCO, International Institute for
Communication and Development, INASP, International Network for the
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Availability of Scientific Publications, APC, Association for Progressive
Communications, ICT, ICTs, Information and Communications Technology,
NGOs, NGO, non-governmental organizations, Global Internet Community for
Environment, Human Rights, Development and Peace, development portals,
activism, activists, progressive, Open Source, free software, online tools, content
development, training, resources &#10;for NGOs, computer skills, internet
training, using e-mail effectively, listservers, electronic discussion &#10;lists,
searching the internet, web design, web site development, HTML, web site
management, web programming, &#10;networking, strategic, internet use, online,
communication, strategies, internet radio, online security, multilingual computing,
databases"
name=keywords>
Most search engines use these hidden metatags to decide which websites should turn up
at the top of the list when you are searching for information on a topic. So, if your site
doesn’t have metatags, you are not giving the search engines the opportunity to find you
and understand that your information may be relevant. Some search engines also use
“spiders”, which troll through your website to decide what kind of information it
contains, and for these search engines the metatags are less important. Each search engine
site includes a description of the process and criteria they use to produce the ranked list of
sites relevant to the topic you are searching on.
Recommendation 17: Register with Search Engines: Search engines like Google can
be helped to find you if you register with them. For example, the Google site includes the
following page for those who want to register their site with the popular search engine.
http://www.google.ca/addurl/?hl=en&continue=/addurl You can use information from
your metatags to tell Google about your site, or even to remind Google about it if you
find a Google search does not put your site in the top ten. The other search engines
provide the same opportunity to register.
Recommendation 18: Support your Website with Paper Based Promotion: People
still may not find your website, even with good metatags and with registration with all the
search engines. The best way to bring people to your site is to make sure they have the
exact address, easily available. The following have all proven very useful:
•
Distribute free pens with the website address on them. Perfect Pens does
this very economically. See
perfectimprints.com/promotional_pens_pencils.asp
•
Put the website address on all letterhead, envelopes, businesscards,
cheques, invoices, newsletters, etc. etc.
•
Include you website address in the telephone directory, both telephone and
yellow pages.
•
Create promotional materials such as ‘frig magnets (Staples has a do-ityourself version), T-shirts, golf caps and mouse pads.
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Recommendation 19: Track your Success with a Counter: With all this investment in
your website, you need to track your success in attracting visitors. You can also just
include a counter like that on http://nlsexualhealthcentre.org/, or a fancier tracking
device. You can find free counters and trackers of various kinds at
http://www.getfreecounter.com/.
Section 4: Credibility
Recmmendation 20: Keep it Up to Date: A credible website is one that is updated
regularly, and includes on its front page the date of its most recent updating. We have
already addressed this under Section 1, Content.
Recommendation 21: Acknowledge Authors and Sources: A credible website will
include the names and professional or other credentials of those who authored the
information on the site. A list of staff, with photographs and short biographies, can
help visitors evaluate the information they have authored. Information for contacting
staff, with telephone numbers, office hours, and an email addresses can also add to
credibility. With non-profit organizations, the names of board members should also
be included. The AIDS committee of Newfoundland and Labrador does this very
effectively at http://www.acnl.net/staff.shtml.
Recommendation 22: Reference sources of Online Information: The credibility of
information provided on organizational websites is further strengthened by including
references and other source materials which shows where the information came from.
As an example, the information on HIV/AIDS summarized in the Canadian site
www.catie.ca always includes reference to the original publication from which the
information was taken.
References and Appendices:
Leslie Bella, Val Mitchelmore, Judy Morgan, Heather St. Croix and Wilma MacInnis,
(2005), Using the Internet to Promote Rural Health: Towards Capacity Development
for Non-profit Health Agencies, Sixth Conference of the Canadian Rural; Health
Research Society, Quebec City, October 27th – 29th, 2005. Appendix C : Background
notes; Appendix D: PowerPoint Presentation.
Teresa Petch, (2004), Content Analysis of Selected Health Information Websites:
Final Report, Act4Health, Simon Fraser University, http://www.sfu.ca/act4hlth
Heather St. Croix, Leslie Bella, Val Mitchelmore, Judy Morgan, and Wilma
MacInnis, (2005), Website Evaluation Tool, Act4Health, School of Social Work,
Memorial University of Newfoundland (available from lbella@tcc.on.ca and
http://www.sfu.ca/act4hlth) Appendix A
Heather St. Croix, Leslie Bella, Val Mitchelmore, Judy Morgan, and Wilma
MacInnis, (2005), Website Evaluation Tool Guidelines, Act4Health, School of Social
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Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland (available from lbella@tcc.on.ca and
http://www.sfu.ca/act4hlth.) Appendix B
Online Resources for Improving your Web-Presence
Action Apps: Collaborative Web Publishing Tools for Non-profits
http://www.apc.org/actionapps/english/ has groups working in collaboration with
the network in Canada, http://www.web.ca/
Act4Health is the research project which supported this sub-project to support the
effective use of the web by small non-profit health agencies. They have further
resources at http://www.sfu.ca/act4hlth.
Attracting visitors to your site: Susan Sweeney has a successful business educating
business people about ways to make best use of the web. Her website at
www.susansweeney.com includes information, and I also like her books, although they
are American and expensive.
Charity Village is a good place to post volunteer jobs, keeping in mind that some
tech jobs can be done remotely – see http://www.charityvillage.com/cv/main.asp
Counters are available free on line from such resources as
http://www.getfreecounter.com/
The Digital Toolbox is designed to help you find tools and resources which will
enable you to create digital content easier, faster, and smarter.
http://www.lib.calpoly.edu/toolbox/
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software is available free from
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/winscp/winscp370.exe?download
HTML is the language used to create websites. You can see what HTML looks like
by clicking on “source” in your internet browser (such as Internet Explorer or
Netscape). The definitive resource for teaching you how to use HTML is
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/
HTML training is available on line at
http://www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/english/index.shtml
HTML code help – you can check tags and links with NetMechanic.
http://www.netmechanic.com/
Front Page is simple software for designing websites that is available as part of the
Microsoft Office suite. Professional web developers do not like it because it produces
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too much redundant code. However, it can be an easy place to start.
http://www.lib.calpoly.edu/toolbox/apps/FrontPage/front_intro.html
Plain Language: on line resources are available to help you simplify the language on
your website. http://www.web.net/~plain/PlainTrain/
Tech Soup: The Technology Place for NonProfits an excellent resource for what's
new and always has info on non-profit discounts for software and services. Although
US based, they have Canadian info as well.http://www.techsoup.org/
Training is available from NetAction's Virtual Activist Training Guide
http://www.netaction.org/training/v-training.html
Websites of Participating Organizations
Aids Committee of Newfoundland and Labrador (ACNL) at www.acnl.net
Newfoundland Sexual Health Centre (formerly Planned Parenthood
Newfoundland and Labrador) at http://nlsexualhealthcentre.org/
Senior’s Resource Centre of Newfoundland Labrador at
www.seniorsresource.ca
Stella Burry Corporation at www.stellaburry.ca
Bereavement Association at http://hcssjr.ca/basi
Newfoundland and Labrador Sexual Assault and Crisis Prevention Centre at
www.sexualassault.nf.ca
Women Interested in Successful Employment (WISE) at www.nfld.net/wise
Websites associated with Leslie Bella
Greetings from Newfoundland http://NewfoundlandArtonLine.com
The Heterosexism Enquirer http://www.mun.ca/the
Leslie Bella’s website at http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~lbella2/lbhome2.html
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