Executive Summary

Here are my summarized findings of the first annual Canadian Survey of Non-Profit Websites, conducted in late December and early January 2009-2010. Following the summary, there are more than 30 pages of charts and analysis that deal with each of these areas in detail. You can leave comments at the bottom of any page.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS SURVEYED

• 81 non-profit websites from across Canada
• Organizations with local, provincial, regional and national geographic scopes are evenly represented
• Good sampling across annual budgets ranging from <$50k/yr to $5 million per year
• Most sectors are well represented

ABOUT THE WEBSITES

• Majority of websites are mature (88% online for more than 2 years, 60% for more than 5 years)
• More than half of the organizations surveyed allocate less than 1/2 percent of their annual budget to their website
• The most common features are news updates/press releases, staff directories and donation capabilities
• The least common are online calendars, membership capabilities and publicly generated content
• Content management systems, news updates/press releases and newsletter sign-up capabilities are the priorities for those sites lacking these features
• While not priorities, popular Wish-list items include photo galleries, FAQs and publicly generated content

HOSTING

• The vast majority of sites are professionally hosted elsewhere
• Most sites report being happy or very happy with their hosting
• The largest complaint is the hosting team's response time
• While only 11% of sites are hosted internally, in-house sites consistently rate the highest on almost every metric, including reliability and overall value
• Piggy-backed sites perform poorly on every metric with the exception of cost effectiveness

ABOUT THE LAST MAJOR UPGRADE

• 42% have done a major update in the last year
• One third have NOT done a major upgrade in the last 2 years
• Non-profits relied on outside professionals for half of the upgrades
• 1 in 10 upgrades were carried out by generous members of the public
• Almost 1/3 of upgrades were done at no cost
• 1/4 of upgrades were done at a discount
• Professional designers were more likely to get "excellent" overall ratings than in-house teams

CONTENT UPDATING

• Static sites are rare (less than 5%)
• The large majority of non-profits update their sites themselves
• Only 1 in 20 non-profits pay an outside firm to do the updates
• The majority of updates are done by in-house staff via a Web interface
• More than 1/2 of organizations are not happy at all or occasionally frustrated with the updating process

WEBSITE PROMOTION

• Almost 2/3 of non-profits have mandated that their website address be placed on all corporate literature
• After mandated urls, the two most regularly used methods of promotion are Social Networking and print advertising
• Just 1 in 8 non-profits make regular use of blogs to promote their site
• TV advertising and paid online advertising are the least-used methods to promote non-profits' websites

BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MEASURES

• A strong majority of respondents feel their sites do a good, very good or excellent job at:
  • educating the public about their cause(s)
  • increasing awareness
  • building credibility
  • creating a positive first impression
  • showcasing their recent efforts
• However websites scored low when it came to adding to organizations' contact lists and increasing revenues

REVENUE GENERATORS

• 4 in 10 report their websites are a minor expense
• 1 in 10 organizations achieve significant revenues via their website
• Of those achieving significant revenues, the majority have operating budgets of $500k or more
• Websites that generate minor or significant revenues differ from money-losing websites in the following ways:
  • Much more likely to have photo galleries (68% vs 34%) and FAQs (42% vs 24%)
  • More likely to promote their sites on social networks (42% vs 31%)
• Simply having donation capabilities doesn't seem to alter the revenue balance - money losers and revenue generators are equally as likely to have those capabilities 

RECOMMENDATIONS

For Non-Profits

• If your organization is just starting out, or needs to increase its credibility, it's a safe bet that a website can help
• Think carefully about building a website in order to generate new income
• Photo galleries seem to positively affect the bottom line
• Don't be afraid to ask for a hefty discount when hiring professionals
• Don't be nervous about pulling the trigger on an upgrade - the vast majority go smoothly
• And definitely put feelers out for generous folks to help you with free upgrades and other tasks
• When it comes to budgeting for upgrades, expect there to be some surprises and/or compromises along the way
• Figure out another way to get new content to your site than paying a professional - only 1 in 20 non-profits shell out cash for posting content

For Web Service Companies and Designers

• Your technical skills seem well-acknowledged by non-profits
• You can make a big difference by finding non-profits who are currently piggy-backing on other organizations websites and building them a presence of their own
• Soft-skills such as managing expectations can set you apart from the competition
• Keeping on budget and sticking to agreed-upon deadlines will also allow you to rise above other web service companies
• A business model that relies on being paid to update content on client websites will land many contracts with non-profits
• Read the advice that non-profits have for developers to get an overall sense of what they need