On Building a Non-profit Site

Not-for-profit organisations (sports clubs, special interest and community associations) have a tricky balance to reach. On the one hand it’s very important to keep costs down: find ways to economise and try to get as many products and services on goodwill, charity or sponsorship as possible. On the other hand, it is important (in most cases) to provide as professional a service as possible to members.

So when it comes to websites, there are basically two [apparent] options. You could design and build it yourself (or ask a member / close friend to do it for you), or ask a professional to do it. Essentially these options boil down a trade-off between cost and risk.

The term “risk” carries a number of implications.  It’s not just security / stability risk (although this is obviously a significant one), but can also be reputational risk or commercial risk.  This is often a difficult trade-off; made even more difficult when web development is not the primary skill of the organisation or individual in question.  Do you just forge ahead and figure that if something’s really wrong, you’ll spot it sooner or later, or do you pay a little money up front and cover your a$$umptions from the outset?

In my opinion, a third option is often overlooked – the nature of developers generally; which is one of problem-solving.  Most developers I know love a problem and are very keen to impart their knowledge and expertise.  The trick when you’re not in the industry is knowing where to start and who to talk to.

If your organisation needs a website designed or built, find a company that does that sort of work.  You probably won’t get the job for free (but you might get a generous discount), but you can ask about the sorts of things you should consider or avoid.

So when I visited the website of a local sports (squash, actually) club and saw images such as the one on the left here, and on the same page had the account credentials and password for the Google account with which the club had set up a blog I couldn’t decide whether I was horrified or alarmed.

If you know an organisation that needs a professional’s touch, share the love.  Offer information, suggestions and guidance.  If that leads to some actual paid work – so much the better for you, but at the very least the development community has – in my humble opinion – a duty of care to other inhabitants whose skill sets are not web-related.  Think of it as “professional citizenship”: investing in your wider industry stakeholders so that confidence, understanding, trust and familiarity is cultivated in you and your peers.  This sort of goodwill will ultimately bring further benefits down the road.

Incidentally, if you are such an organisation that could use some helpful (free) advice, drop me a line, give me a call or visit my website.

disclosure: The club in question has been notified of the security risk I identified and (I am assured) is taking remedial action.

UPDATE – No sooner had I published this post when RWW published this article.  Could be part of what non-profits could be (should be?) looking for.