I recently read the following article by Nancy Schwartz and it inspired me to share my opinion on our blog.

The one thing every company wants is a good story to help it sell its products or services. The one thing that every nonprofit has is a lot of great stories. So why is it that companies, and not nonprofits, so often have more compelling content on their websites?

One possibility is that nonprofits faced with so many stories to tell, are unable to know which ones to tell which donors. Unfortunately this dilemma can lead to a website that looks too much like the latest edition of USA Today with as many parts of an organization’s mission highlighted as possible. Another choice may be to try and combine all of the stories into a central theme which never does any one part of your mission justice.

We heard a lot about this problem during our interviews with donors while designing the DonorFirst Platform. They told us they want clear content, and they want only the content that matters to them. Clear content to them meant focusing on specific aspects of the mission rather than an overview of all the good works being done.

That all sounds great, but how do you decide which story to tell? It was thinking about that question that led us to create the subscription feature within the DonorFirst Platform. By giving donors the ability to select the programs they are interested in we not only provide them exactly what they want, but we also provide clients the ability to create clear and focused content on any number of aspects of their missions.

So polish your story telling skills and start asking your donors “Which one would you like to hear today?”

For the full article – http://gettingattention.org/2011/08/nonprofit-website-content/