The Spacious Blog
This year, use your year-end giving campaign to tell a story that connects with your audience and makes them feel important. Try stepping outside the box, being bold, and closing this year’s fundraising out with a splash.
We’ve made some performance improvements!
We want to make sure our Care Plan clients have the tools to be successful with their websites. That’s why we’ve gone through the process of optimizing all of our Care Plan clients’ websites to ensure they load as fast as possible. Why it matters: A faster website delivers a better user experience. No one…
How to write quality content for your website
On a website, content is king. Good content is clear, concise, and conversational, leading the user through a compelling narrative. In web design, typography, colors, and images prime the user’s emotional expectations for the content. You can’t design your way out of mediocre content. Whether you’re building a new website or looking to improve your…
Confused about domain names? Here are 10 quick tips to get you started…
Before you even have a website design, you’ll need a domain. This is the gateway to your site–the first thing a visitor sees before your page even loads. It’s important! I get a handful of questions on domain best practices when working with clients and potential clients after I ask them about their domain –…
Planning for your new site
When planning your website, the best place to start is a bit counter-intuitive: zoomed out. Focusing on the bigger picture first–deciding who the website is for, what it should achieve, and what your competitors are doing–makes it easier to align any changes you might make with the most important big-picture ideas and goals of your…
Three key questions when starting a new website project
Planning your new website project can be intimidating. There are so many different directions you can take it. Do you want to be bold and flashy, or do you want to be refined and minimalist? Do you want something trendy or timeless? Most importantly, how do you plan a website that will define your brand…
Don’t just focus on donors
When you focus on your beneficiaries, you not only better serve them, you make a powerful and authentic case to your donors about why they should support you.
Business based on abundance instead of scarcity
Instead of seeing your business and the marketplace as one of scarcity and competition, bring a mindset of abundance. Focus on maximizing the value you offer to clients and other business owners, rather than focusing on what you can get from them.
The generational difference in donors
There is a huge difference in how generations think about donations to nonprofits. Older generations tend to be more institutionally aligned. This means they would repeatedly donate to a particular organization, church, political party, etc. In the younger generations, like millennials and Gen-Zers, donors tend to make donations based on what emotionally resonates with them…
Tapping the power of social proof
Social proof is the “I’ll have what he’s having” of marketing. When people are talking about your organization outside of your marketing, unsolicited–be it with friends, with family, or on social media–these are all forms of social proof. Social proof is also the most important form of marketing while also being the most difficult to…
A quick & simple guide to writing effective blog posts
Do you want more engagement from your audience? Talk to them! Obviously, you cannot talk with every single person individually. Much like you, we’re busy. But you can effectively communicate with them through your blog. By keeping a regular blog–whether you post once a month or once a week–you can keep in regular contact with…
Why nonprofit websites generally suck
Most nonprofit websites don’t convert well, which is marketing-speak for “they suck at getting visitors to take any meaningful action.” These websites don’t generate many donations, mailing list sign-ups, new members, or event attendees. Why? Because—generally speaking—most nonprofit websites are all about the organization at the expense of the visitor’s attention and interest. These nonprofits…
Password management 101 for nonprofits
Nonprofits are generally a mess when it comes to password management. In my work as a web designer, it’s a regular occurrence to work with a nonprofit that can’t find critical passwords when we need them. The website hosting account just expired, but nobody’s logged in there since Joanne, who was two-communication-managers ago. The organization’s…
How to stand out in your industry
Excellent customer service, trustworthiness, and quality products/services are NOT differentiators. They’re expected. They’re the bare minimum. If you’re an architect, your drawings should be detailed. An accountant? Let me guess: you’re good with numbers. If you’re a restaurant, we can assume the food tastes good. A digital marketer? I assume you’ll get me “results,” as…
The art of gathering useful feedback
Getting effective feedback is the key to a successful project. Whether it’s a client, boss, employees, etc. a good feedback process makes a project stronger. When done poorly, however, it can unravel into a never-ending nightmare. A solid feedback process is more than just sending a draft and saying “Let me know if you have…
What’s your story?
You’ll consume hundreds of pieces of micro-content today, and you’ll forget about 98% of it by tomorrow. What’ll stick? The compelling stories, the conversations, interactions, text, photos, and videos that fit into a storyline that resonates with your life in some way. As an organization or business, your marketing is going to waste if you…
27 Things I learned from 5 years in business
This April marked five years since I left my last “real job” at a nonprofit and dove full-time into starting a business. I had just spent about a year self-learning code and basic design in my free time. I felt far from ready but realized I’d never get things off the ground while working full-time…
We got our 35th Care Plan Client!
I got my 35th website care plan client signed on this month! These care plans started off as a tiny source of revenue for clients who needed ongoing help after launching their sites. Over the years they’ve become a foundational aspect of my business. I believe in the value of maintenance, not just build cool…
How to unlearn boring
We internalize this belief that in order to be successful in business, in running an organization, or in our careers we need to be professional. In this case, “professional” is really just another way of saying boring. It’s the opposite of having a personality, of being unique, of being memorable. Not only is this advice…
Think about your audience’s needs, then your own.
When it comes to communicating with your audience, the first thing that you should worry about is what your customer needs, and how you can help them with it. If your sole message is always “buy from me” without providing any value, it’s going to do more harm than good. The fact that you need…