Nonprofit Web Sites and Transparency

Today at his oft-stimulating blog, Seth Godin considers how technology can be used either to shield you from your constituents or to make you closer to them. He offers some ideas on how new technologies can help personalize interactions rather than depersonalize them. Many of Seth's ideas are tailored perfectly to nonprofits. He suggests private video-sharing for reporting to parents on students' progress, or using inexpensive virtual assistants to transcribe from-the-field reports. Ideas like these are great because they're examples of technology enabling a new level of personal interaction rather than imitating an old one.

Before my move to the nonprofit sector, I worked for a software company with about four employees. Although we didn't treat the size of our company as a secret, we carefully designed our Web site to look comparable to those of our larger competitors. When clients met us and found out who and what we really were, they were always pleasantly surprised. The "Oh!" moment when they walked into our one-room office was a kickstart into a productive discussion about what our team could do for them. I always wished we could have found a way for the clients to understand what kind of team we were when they first visited our Web site, while still maintaining a high-quality Web presence. Our greatest asset to clients — a small, focused team of skilled professionals — was the asset least advertised by our site.

Most people would agree that transparency is essential in a nonprofit's Web site, but the steps toward greater transparency are not always clear. Ken at The Nonprofit Consultant Blog offers some very practical steps to making your Web site more clear about what goes on behind the doors: post your audits; post board meeting minutes; and, of course, provide real names and contact information instead of a catch-all email address.

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Discuss This in Our Forums

In what ways is technology a barrier between your organization and your constituents, and in what ways can it deepen your interactions? What messages do you want your Web site to send about what your nonprofit does? Share your thoughts with others in this Web Building forum discussion.