I remember as a kid, my mother running around dusting off the tops of tables in our formal living room because one of her friends called on the house phone to come over. I will never forget her pointing at the coffee table books saying, “you forgot those!” Well you told me to do the tabletops was my response (that earned me the look and probably some other punishment). As an adult I understand. Dust builds up on everything, and there was nothing more embarrassing to my Mom than a guest seeing dust on your furniture when they came over.
Even though we live in a more virtual world, virtual dust can still build up. This came to mind as I was making contributions this past Giving Tuesday. This is what I mean when I say virtual dust, when was the last time you checked your automation as it relates to online contributions. When was the last time you inspected every element on your website.
Does your automated acknowledgement have the right signature; are the impacted programs current; does your “thank you/ confirmation” page still work or exist? It is really easy to “set it and forget it” when it comes to automated responses on our donation pages. This is allowing virtual dust to build up. In my “Giving Tuesday” giving, here is some of the virtual dust I witnessed.
- The signature was from a development director that had retired
- The confirmation page sent me to a “404 error” (A Thank You page that no longer existed)
- An impact statement that referenced a program that was no longer being done at a program
I have knowledge beyond the average donor because of my involvement with some of these organizations. I am what you call a back door friend. I don’t care about the dust and I know your back door is always open and will grab a cup of coffee without being asked. However you never know when those people that are more discriminating may drop by. What if someone was to follow-up and to call and ask for the retired development director about making another contribution?
“People still look at our websites if they research us. We need to make sure that we deliver what we promise…”
This caused me to investigate further. I went to the websites of all the places I supported and found the following.
- An event registration page from 2 years ago
- A planned (legacy) giving page that was “under construction”
- A scholarship page that had multiple grammatical and formatting errors, and seemed a little rushed in its design.
Most organizations have cleaning services that come into their office regularly to empty the trash, clean the bathrooms, dust, etc. so that the organization remains welcoming to visitors. In some small organizations there are even chore charts where everyone chips in. We take pride in our physical locations because we are looking at it daily and welcome people it into the building regularly. We need to do the same for our virtual or digital locations. People still look at our websites if they research us. We need to make sure that we deliver what we promise when people go to our websites. For example, if we have a financial reports tab, is the latest audit or 990 uploaded so that people can check our stability or is the most recent one from 3 years ago. If we have a board members page, are the names, bios, and photos current or are the only photos from members that have been on the board since the last time we asked for headshots.
Two things you can do
The solution is simple. Just like it was to dust the books along with the tabletops.
- Include an audit of your virtual location in your development plan a couple times a year.
- Another idea is to have a committee on your board where 2 or 3 people audit your website monthly (similar to the chore chart).
It is important that we keep our virtual house in order just like we keep our real house. A restaurant would not keep pictures of old menu items or former prices on their online presence, you need to put the same due diligence to your website (and other virtual links) .
