We Don’t Have Any News?

I will occasionally hear a nonprofit staff person say “we don’t have much that needs to be updated, probably not more than once per quarter, if even that.”

When I hear that, I know that the nonprofit is not up to speed with what needs to be done to tell their story effectively and attract and retain donors and other constituents.

The days of the “brochure website” are over and if you’re going to compete in this environment, you need to have a continuously updated website. It’s not that nonprofits don’t have enough news to talk about – they must – unless they currently have no active programs or activities going on. I tell my clients, think about everything that comes across your desk or in your email from staff, clients, board members AND everything you send out. What in all those communications may be news you can place on your website?

News In Your InBox

1. Interesting industry news you are tracking on Google Alerts - – include blogs, articles, research on topics of interest to your constituents. You can link directly to them but it would be much better to refer to them in your own article, blog entry or add it to your resources page and then create a link on your news page to the resources page.

2. Any and all events info - starting with 6 months out for a “Save the Date” announcement and photos from last year’s event and then monthly updates as to progress i.e. when a new speaker / presenter comes on board, thank you to a silent auction donor and preview of the item, location details once they are set (with photos and map).

3. Client accomplishments - profile a client that you just helped get a job, learn to read, someone who has successfully completed your program or received help in some way.

4. Case for Support - you’re writing grants and adding in client stories, accomplishments, and all kinds of other good stuff – are these things on your website? Don’t forget to word it differently on the website – keep it more concise and visual.

5. Project Help - look at all the projects you are working on right now – how many of them could use some assistance from volunteers? Make an announcement with brief job description, start and end date and make it news.

News You Create

Then add to your news mix by creating news specifically for your website i.e.:
1. Program updates/profiles - each month choose a different program to profile. If you have classes, make the upcoming class announcement a news item but also profile a previous class with photos and testimonials. Take that camera with you everywhere you go – stories are much more exciting when photos are attached.

2. Create a survey with a specific goal in mind – gathering feedback on programs and services, or gather information about issues of interest to your constituents, or conduct research/gauge interest level for a new program. Announce the survey when it launches and post the results directly or write an article that includes the results.

3. Press Releases - every nonprofit should be creating regular press releases covering interesting news that they send out to news outlets online and offline and to all partners and associates. Even if the story does not get picked up, you can feature it on your website and archive them – people will find them!

4. How You Can Help - each month feature a different way that people can help your organization. All of the different ways to help should already be listed on your Get Involved pages, but pull one out to talk about and feature a comment/testimonial from someone who has assisted in that way or a photo and name of a recent volunteer/donor.

Organizing the News

Where should all this news go? If you don’t have a full communications plan in place, at least sit down and say – this type of news will go here, and this type there. You don’t want your website news, email blasts, blog posts, Facebook posts and Tweets to be completely identical. We recommend using your website (in a media center or spread throughout the site) or blog as the repository of all news and have a place on your main page of your site to have links to internal website pages or a feed directly from your blog. From there, you should focus on your audience to determine what vehicle (Enewsletter, Facebook, Twitter) will be used to plant a portion of the story that will bring people to the site or blog for the remaining portion of the news.

News Examples

Here are some examples of what other nonprofits do with the news on their main page:

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