Marketing leaders have the best intentions going into an expensive and large six-figure website overhaul. However, according to the Harvard Business Review, as many as half of big projects like these are considered failures when all is said and done. And you’re left wondering…
Why did this take longer than I was told?
Why was more funding needed than was estimated?
Why were there so many surprises and scope changes?
Why do I feel so burned by the agency my team selected?
Now you find yourself facing down another big website overhaul and all the risk associated with it. How will you feel confident it will be successful this time? How will you be sure you won’t be left with heartburn and the same frustrating questions as last time?
In my 15+ years working in this industry, I’ve learned there are three key elements to ensuring a big website design and development project is successful.
Think of it like a three-legged stool…
1) Stakeholder Alignment
Performing candid and skillfully focused stakeholder exercises which tease out the goals and intentions of important leaders in your organization. These exercises force invaluable conversations, and ultimately lead to buy-in.
2) User Experience
Target audience data mitigates risk by replacing assumptions with defined needs and specific pain points. These eventually inform the site experience that’s most helpful to each audience.
3) Design & Development Planning
With stakeholders aligned and users defined, design and development planning can begin using models such as sitemaps and wireframes. Technical and functional requirements can start to be dialed in as well.
Unfortunately, most agencies focus only on one or maybe two of the legs described above, resulting in a shaky foundation to your project. But not Kanopi. We focus on and thrive at all three, and we make it fun along the way.
We call this endeavor the Website Growth Plan (WGP). Through this proven process, we’re able to answer questions such as:
I know my site is not working for me, but how do I improve it?
I will need to migrate from Drupal 7 to D8 or D9, but what will that budget look like?
How can I improve my SEO? How is my site performance now?
I need a new content strategy, but how can I do this properly when I am already so busy?
After taking factors (like the ones illustrated below) into account, the WGP delivers an all encompassing action plan for your website. By setting expectations early and often, this helps avoid the heartburn-inducing questions you were left with after your last website project.
Which website growth plan is right for me?
More information can be found here, but below is an overview of our various plans:
Website Reimagine
This plan is a concentration of UX research, content strategy, and a bite-sized amount of design. It helps formulate a game plan that drives clarity for the team and gets some early design thinking on the table. Plus, it is actually a wonderful use of time as it is the first step in an overall design and development project, as the deliverables include a roadmap to launch.
Usability and Design
This is a data-informed optimization plan incorporating user experience, visual design and content recommendations delivered in an actionable plan for next steps.
ContentStrategy
Amplify your message through a powerful analysis of important information, including user needs, competitor analysis, personas and Customer Decision Journey mapping — from Awareness to Advocacy. This plan focuses on storytelling content, user experience, visual design recommendations, and more.
Drupal 7 Transition Plan
You should feel secure planning and budgeting for the transition from D7 to D8/9 or to WordPress. This plan removes the “unknown” and illuminates the details for your organization to make an informed decision and take action on next steps.
Technical SEO
This is a deep-dive to analyze your website’s SEO technical health and set you up for search engine optimization success.
GDPR & Compliance
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a legal framework that sets guidelines for the collection and processing of personal information from individuals who live in the European Union (EU). This plan gets you compliant.
Accessibility
Reach your audience and meet compliance with Website Compliance Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 AA or higher) through a skillful analysis and recommendations action plan.
Technical Review
A comprehensive technical deep-dive into your site’s code and technical health to provide foundational recommendations for optimization and stability.
And if one of those doesn’t quite fit? Don’t worry. Our nimble nature finds us creating custom packages for our clients to best meet their needs. Contact us to chat about which plan is the best fit.
More and more donors are finding out about organizations online and using digital spaces to support the causes that they care about. To keep up with other modern organizations, it’s crucial that you consider a nonprofit digital transformation.
Digital transformation is a common buzzword that seems more complicated than it is. At its core, it simply describes how organizations and businesses improve their processes through technology. If your own nonprofit tech solution isn’t doing all it can to support your mission and drive you towards your goals, a digital transformation is the exact thing you need.
But where do you start? How do you know if you need one? How does one even begin the process of a nonprofit digital transformation?
As a trusted nonprofit partner, we at Kanopi have compiled some of our own insights here. This guide will walk you through the basics of what a nonprofit digital transformation is, how it can help your nonprofit, and the basic steps to get started.
Nonprofit Digital Transformation: What Is It And Why Is It Important?
Nonprofit digital transformation is the integration of technology across all areas of the organization. The result is an improvement in how the nonprofit functions and provides value. Ultimately, a successful nonprofit digital transformation should streamline internal operations and optimize supporter relationships.
How do you know if your own organization needs a digital transformation? Ask yourself the following questions:
Are you and your staff members communicating with donors manually?
Do you often find mistakes in your donor database? Misspelled names, typos, or duplicate profiles?
Do you sync your CRM and CMS manually? How often do you have to conduct large website maintenance?
Is it becoming harder to track fundraising engagements as your supporter base grows?
If you answered yes to any of the above, a nonprofit digital transformation should definitely be in your future. Otherwise, you’re stuck wasting valuable time and resources on processes that can quickly be automated and streamlined with the right solution.
How Digital Transformation Can Help Nonprofits
In order to better understand how exactly a digital transformation can help your nonprofit, let’s review some common challenges organizations have when it comes to their tech solutions. Then, we’ll review how a digital transformation can help resolve them.
Common Pitfalls for Nonprofits
Without a dedicated digital strategy to guide a nonprofit’s efforts and streamline operations, your organization risks falling behind and missing key opportunities with potential supporters.
Here are the common areas of digital strategy where nonprofits fall short:
Missing vital donor engagement opportunities, such as online fundraising directly on your website.
Using outdated campaign strategies, like sending generic communications to your entire supporter base rather than personalized messaging.
Lacking communication between departments and fundraising tools, leading to a fragmented understanding of your overall data.
Benefits of Nonprofit Digital Transformation
What exactly can an effective and well planned nonprofit digital transformation do for your organization? Consider the following benefits:
Empower nonprofit leaders to make data-driven decisions. Strategies and donor outreach methods are much more successful when they’re backed by concrete data and historical insight.
Automate the process of tracking and recording necessary donor engagements. Your dedicated nonprofit tech solution should be collecting all key data points as each engagement happens.
Save on manual labor time by staff members. A nonprofit digital transformation transfers many of the manual tasks that staff members undertake to an automated solution.
Streamline day-to-day tasks like sending thank you emails, updating donor profiles, etc. Having tools facilitate these day-to-day activities not only frees up time for your staff members but also ensures that these necessary tasks are done on time and accurately.
Ensure that your nonprofit tech solutions support a growing organization. As your audience and internal team expand, your donor database, nonprofit website, and other nonprofit tech should be able to support this growth.
Provide a more secure, trusted experience for supporters. Your tech is only as good as how secure it is. Nonprofit solutions help you gather and use your data more effectively, but it of course has to protect that data as well. A digital transformation can ensure that your tools do just that.
Allow for a flexible work environment by enabling team members to work from home. A nonprofit digital transformation gives you the tools and resources to streamline how your own staff members communicate and work together. Some nonprofit tech solutions can even empower your organization to work from home.
Increase your online fundraising impact. By investing in the best nonprofit tools for your unique goals and mission, you’re also better able to facilitate online fundraising efforts and increase your impact.
Offer convenient ways for others to support and give to your organization. Your online donation tool, CMS, event management solution, text fundraising platform, and more, are all ways your nonprofit can transform its digital system. These novel tools also provide more opportunities and channels for donors to support your nonprofit.
Getting Started with your Nonprofit Digital Transformation
If you’re interested in bringing your nonprofit digital solutions to the next level, you’re already on the right track by reading this article. Starting with research is always the best approach whenever you make any meaningful and long-lasting changes to your organization and how it operates. But what next actions should you take to get the ball officially rolling?
Nonprofit digital transformations are going to look different depending on where your organization currently stands, the solutions you already use, and your unique goals and mission. However, there are some general steps you’ll likely follow:
Complete a nonprofit tech audit. This reviews how your nonprofit is currently doing in the digital space. While this can be done manually, partnering with a nonprofit tech consultant or another experienced agency will be your best bet.
Identify current technology gaps and opportunities.Look to your nonprofit database and take note of any engagements that have fallen behind. Turning to your tech stack, identify processes that cause more roadblocks than solve them.
Come up with a plan for your digital transformation. This should include a roadmap of the tools you’re going to invest in as well as how you’re going to implement them. Consider the timeframe and other constraints you may have, like budget and staff time.
While tackling a nonprofit digital transformation is possible to do on your own, it’s recommended that you partner with an experienced tech consultant to ensure you’re not missing any vital opportunities and that your solution is doing all it can for your mission.
As the centralizing factor of many of your online engagements, your nonprofit website is crucial for maximizing your donor relationships and leveraging opportunities that drive you toward your mission. It’s likely also the first place potential supporters look to find out more about your organization.
Partner with us to start your nonprofit digital transformation and ensure that your CMS and website are effectively meeting your needs and helping you towards your goals. Contact us here to learn more.
While many can get by with the help of their passionate team members and volunteer base, often the expertise of a consultant is invaluable.
One of the largest areas of consulting that nonprofits seek is in technology. With the abundance of fundraising software, constituent relationship management (CRM) platforms, content management systems (CMS), and all of their capabilities, it can get overwhelming setting up the best solution and tech strategy for your nonprofit’s unique needs.
Nonprofit technology consultants can provide a wide range of benefits for your organization, especially if you align your goals and flesh out an actionable plan. However, if you’ve never worked with a consultant before, or you’re considering finding a new one, navigating this relationship and setting realistic expectations can be challenging.
This guide will walk you through the basic offerings of a nonprofit technology consultant, explore the process of hiring the right firm, and share how our own services at Kanopi can help your nonprofit organization.
Contact us for a helping hand with your nonprofit technology strategy and boost your web presence today.
Nonprofit Technology Consulting: The Basics
Let’s imagine you are the leader of a growing nonprofit organization. You have a basic system with an online donation tool, CRM, and CMS platform— however, these solutions are not integrated. Your online fundraising has grown in the past year, and while you’re happy about the upsurge of donors, it’s getting harder to organize and manage all of the new data you have.
While investing in the best tools can certainly make a difference, if you don’t know how to use those tools to drive your mission forward, you’re likely missing out on a couple of key opportunities.
Nonprofit technology consultants are experts in the software solutions that power an organization’s mission. They work closely with nonprofits to review their operations and develop strategic tech improvements that can boost the organization’s efforts.
Whether your current nonprofit software no longer supports your growing operations or you want to optimize your nonprofit website, turning to a tech consultant can focus your efforts and ensure that the tools you use advance your mission.
Depending on their specialty, nonprofit tech consultants can provide guidance for the following tools:
Fundraising software like online donation tools, matching gift databases, prospect research tools, and more.
Event registration software to promote fundraising opportunities, create landing pages, and regulate supporter participation.
Communication and marketing software like email tools and text messaging tools.
CRM systems to organize donor profiles, track fundraising metrics, and compile comprehensive reports.
Volunteer management software to better recruit, retain, and engage volunteers.
CMS systems to create a beautifully branded nonprofit website and effectively market upcoming opportunities.
Nonprofit Technology Consulting Services
Nonprofit tech consultants can assist with a number of different services. For example, some of the common ones are:
Technology solution building. When it comes to leading a nonprofit, there are a number of engagements and processes that need to be considered, as well as what tools will facilitate them. Nonprofit tech consultants can be a guide when it comes to building the best solution for the organization. They’ll work closely with the client to gauge the current system and then make a plan for recommendations.
Technology strategy development. Once a comprehensive and dependable tech solution is in place, consultants can come in to aid in strategy development. This is best done by working closely with the client and becoming familiar with their unique goals and needs.
Research on nonprofit’s goals, audience, and mission. The best consultant for any sector and industry will be one that truly makes the effort to align with their client’s goals, audience, and mission. This way, the suggestions and changes they implement are working towards the common goal(s).
Web design, development, and support. A nonprofit’s website is the virtual face of their organization. It’s where donors can give online, where supporters can learn about the mission, and volunteers can sign up for events. Nonprofit tech consultants can help fundraising leaders determine the best CMS for their needs, as well as assist in web design, development, and support.
Staff augmentation. Sometimes your nonprofit could use the help of extra hands, but can’t necessarily afford to hire new staff. Some nonprofit tech consultants can step in and provide the needed help with their own team, whether it’s in tech development or other support.
Choosing a Nonprofit Technology Consultant
So how do you find the best nonprofit tech consultant for your organization? You might be asking questions like, should the team be local? What type of experience should you look for? How can you find an agency that aligns with your organization’s values and goals?
Well, there’s more to it than just picking the first one on Google search.
In order to find the perfect technology consultant for your nonprofit, here are the common steps you might take:
1. Review your nonprofit needs.
What are the areas in your tech solution where you need the most help? Is it in data storage or integration?
Divide your needs into two categories, “immediate” and “long-term”. This can help you prioritize the tasks that you’d want the consultant to tackle first!
2. Meet with your nonprofit’s board and discuss guidelines.
Of course, the rest of the nonprofit leadership team should be on the same page about hiring outside help and what the help is for. This prevents any confusion or pushback later on.
Additionally, this ensures that your team understands the exact gaps that the nonprofit tech consultant is filling. This helps you and your team better advocate for the type of consulting you’ll need to drive your mission.
From there, consider guidelines for a general budget, a target start date for the consulting service, and a general timeframe for the partnership. Remember, these guidelines are just there to do just that— guide you. It’s important to remain flexible, as not everything can be predicted before the partnership even begins.
3. Compile a list of consultants you might want to work with.
It’s now time to start researching potential nonprofit technology consultants. Here are some of the methods that organizations use to find potential partners:
Recommendations from colleagues at similar nonprofit organizations
Online lists or directories of top nonprofit technology consulting firms
From here, consider what is most important to you. If you prefer to meet in-person with a team, then look for an agency that is local. If you know that you need consulting in website development and support, make sure to review the agency’s specialties to see if they align with your goals.
One of the most important things to consider in your nonprofit tech consultant is their experience. If their client history includes nonprofits and other organizations similar in size and mission to yours, that’s a good indication that they have the necessary skills to help with your own technology solution and strategy.
4. Consider putting out a request for proposal (RFP)
Oftentimes, nonprofits will create a request for proposal for a technology consultant. An RFP’s purpose is to communicate your nonprofit’s exact needs, your mission, the current context of your organization, and any relevant goals when working with a consultant. Asking for a proposal from a potential consultant partner is a great way for you to determine which candidate is best for you.
Your official RFP will be unique to your organization and dependent on a number of factors. However, there are definitely fundamental components that you should include if you want the best results. Make sure your nonprofit’s RFP has:
An overview of your organization, any relevant history, your mission, and a brief description of your donor base.
A description of your nonprofit tech needs.
The guidelines of the partnership, like the general budget and timeframe.
Expected outcomes for the partnership. You can even include a list of tangible deliverables.
Any questions or requests to the consultant team for additional information or background history.
Generally, your RFP should summarize your nonprofit’s needs in a concise way, giving the consultant the necessary information to propose a strategy to address them. The more focused your RFP is, the more effective the proposal will be!
Next, it’s time to compile a list of top candidates based on your research. Have your team rank their favorite consultants and then compare the rankings. If there are any clear frontrunners, that’s a clear indication of who might be best.
Once you’ve narrowed down your top picks and finalized your RFP, it’s time to reach out to them. This is the perfect time to introduce your organization and provide the consultant with your RFP. Make sure they know how and when to get back in touch.
6. Ask for references and follow up
Hiring a consultant is a lot like hiring staff. You need to make sure this is someone with whom you can build a relationship and work effectively with.
You and your team should review each of the proposals that you receive from your request. Consider all of the points made in the above steps when determining the best technology consultant for your nonprofit.
Don’t be afraid to also ask for references. Having a good idea of their relationship with other clients can inform you if their approach is right for you.
Once you know who you want to work with, make sure to follow up and start discussing the next steps!
Kanopi: Top Nonprofit Technology Consultant
Now more than ever, a nonprofit website is necessary to drive your online fundraising, meaningfully engage with supporters, and push you towards your mission. As a top partner for nonprofits, we at Kanopi Studios have helped develop over 150 active sites thanks to our continuous improvement team.
Website development, maintenance, and support come naturally to us. With our wide range of website services, we aim to work with you to make the most of your organization’s online presence. Even when your site is officially launched, our work is not done. We also provide a full website growth plan to ensure that your site is sustainable for as long as possible.
This website growth plans often includes:
how to increase conversions for your organization using your website;
CMS customization based on your unique situation;
a three to five-year breathing window (if operating on Drupal.)
Your own plan will be focused on your nonprofit’s unique technological needs. One of our most attractive draws is our complete approach to web design and continuous improvement. We know that small, incremental changes are more beneficial to your website’s health than large structural and system updates every couple of months.
Kanopi Nonprofit Tech Consulting Services
Our specific technology consulting services for your nonprofit include:
User-focused approach to strategy, design, and development.
Continuous improvement approach to website maintenance.
CMS development for Drupal, WordPress, or Mukurtu users with third-party integrations, key feature development, bug fixes, security patches, and more.
Extensive research to ensure that Kanopi understands the nonprofit’s goals, missions, and audience, improving your overall website UX.
Technical SEO optimization to keep your website high in the rankings for popular keywords.
Keeping up with relevant privacy laws and legislations, like whether California’s CPAA affects your organization.
User persona creation based on the research collected to map your supporters’ journeys once they visit your site. This also helps you attract site visitors and guide them to your targeted action.
Web design and content strategy development to align your website with your mission and your supporters’ needs.
User testing to ensure that all of the new features and tech strategy work together.
A full website growth plan to set your website up for success even once the partnership is over.
Staff augmentation by some of our most talented team members. We can provide extra hands when it comes to design or development tasks.
With our flexible and completely customized approach to tech consulting for your nonprofit, we go above and beyond for our clients. We don’t aim to just be consultants, but extensions of your team to ensure that your nonprofit website and CMS solution are doing all they can for your mission.
All of our team members are experts at what they do, with an average of 11 years of experience for both the Drupal and WordPress platforms. Explore our portfolio of nonprofit clients to see how we work and the great results we’ve helped create.
Contact us to see if our nonprofit technology consulting services meet your needs.
The online world is rich and full of information. From watching Netflix to exploring your Instagram feed to looking up dinner recipes, there seems to be no end to the internet content available.
With such a truly saturated space, your nonprofit needs a focused and comprehensive digital strategy if you want to reach supporters in meaningful ways and increase fundraising for your mission. Otherwise, your message can get buried and you risk losing sight of your goal.
The best digital nonprofit strategy likely spans multiple tools and marketing outlets. Creating this type of strategy can seem intimidating, especially if you’re not aware of how those tools and outlets support each other. This guide will dive deep into not only exactly what a digital nonprofit strategy is, but also how to best create one for your organization and some top tips to maximize those efforts.
Your nonprofit organization likely already depends on a few key tools to reach and engage your supporters. Your online donation platform facilitates gifts, your content management system (CMS) helps you create a beautifully designed website, and your marketing tools promote upcoming campaigns and engage donors.
However, it’s not enough to just have an arsenal of working tech. In fact, it takes careful planning and coordination to ensure that your tools and marketing strategies not only work together but also support each other. That’s where your digital nonprofit strategy comes in.
In simple terms, your digital nonprofit strategy is a focused plan that takes action on your fundraising and donor engagement goals through digital marketing methods.
Your overarching nonprofit goals, any budget constraints, and the technology you have all impact your digital strategy. This strategy then informs your online marketing efforts, with the two working together to maximize your nonprofit’s impact.
The common tools and marketing channels nonprofits use for their digital strategy include:
Nonprofit website – Your website is an increasingly important part of your nonprofit digital strategy. Your nonprofit site centralizes your online engagement and is likely the first place supporters will look when they want to find out more about your mission and any upcoming events or campaigns. It’s also where donors give! How you design your website and the content you add to it is crucial in your digital marketing efforts.
Online fundraising solution – This is how you accept online gifts from your supporters. It’s important that the tools you use accurately capture donor data and protect their sensitive information.
Email/text communications – Sending your supporters marketing materials, whether through email or text, is a popular way to get the word of an upcoming campaign out quickly. Use your communication tools to further relationships with donors by sending them personalized messages, donor thank you letters, and other targeted content.
Social media content – More and more, people are finding out about exciting events and nonprofit efforts through social media content. Because of its easy shareability, it’s a great way to not only reach your current supporters but also expand your audience. Encourage your followers to repost your content and thank them publicly for it on the platform!
One of the great things about your nonprofit digital strategy is that it naturally depends on tools and is generating valuable data. You can reference this data to continually refine your digital strategy and reach your target audience in more meaningful ways.
Steps To Creating A Nonprofit Digital Strategy
Your nonprofit digital strategy is unique to your organization, goals, and audience. These are some common steps that all nonprofit leaders will generally follow:
1. Determine overarching nonprofit goals
The first step to creating a successful nonprofit digital strategy is to establish your goals. This is the foundation of your entire strategy — each engagement and decision your nonprofit makes should be with your core goals in mind.
To begin brainstorming, consider these questions. Do you want to:
Raise a certain amount of money?
Increase awareness of your mission?
Grow your audience or base of supporters?
Increase a specific audience profile?
Generate new leads?
Once you have a general idea of the goals you want to accomplish, it’s time to make them actionable. Start by:
Identifying gaps in your current nonprofit digital strategy and consider how you might tackle them for your updated strategy.
Analyzing data in your database to find a quantifiable target for your overarching goals. For instance, look at past successful fundraising campaigns to gauge what a realistic goal may be this time around.
Brainstorming the technology that will play a role. What digital tools and marketing outlets will you be using?
Determining your goals is crucial to guide your nonprofit digital strategy and to provide insight into the choices you’ll make. Make sure your goals are specific and actionable, with clear targets and ways to measure success.
2. Define audience and web personas
If you want to make the most of your nonprofit digital strategy, you have to become familiar with the audience you’re trying to reach.
Start with reviewing your past data to learn more about how your existing audience engages with your nonprofit. Looking to your website, Google Analytics, CRM, and email marketing metrics can give you clues into the types of supporters that engage with you online and the content that they best respond to. For instance, if past donors heavily engaged with your Instagram posts, then that’s worth noting when creating your new digital strategy.
You can use this same data to create audience or web personas. Web personas are detailed profiles of your nonprofit’s target audience. Your organization will likely use more than one web persona to account for the different types of people who support your nonprofit. With a clearly defined target customer in mind, it’s much easier to tailor your digital content to speak directly to them.
To create web personas, you need to:
Research your audience. Some key audience details to take note of are age, location, income level, interests/activities, and donor behavior.
Document and organize information. If there are common data points, begin grouping them together to start creating a persona. This could by interests, needs, preferences, age group, corporate match eligibility, and more. How you segment your own supporters will depend on your unique organization and goals.
Bring personas to life. It’s easier to create targeted marketing content for a persona when you think of them as real people. Consider giving your audience personas a name with a visual/face that matches their general description.
When creating web personas it’s helpful to get as detailed and specific as possible. The above image is an example of how you might organize the details in a web persona and determine the best way to connect with that audience. From there you can produce website content and other digital materials catering to each persona, creating a more engaging and personalized user experience.
3. Consider any constraints
As you develop your digital nonprofit strategy and set your goals, you also have to consider any constraints. While it’s nice to think that the sky’s the limit, it’s often unrealistic and can set your strategy up for failure.
These might not all apply to you, but here are some of the common constraints to keep in mind:
Financial budgets. Consider how much you can spend when it comes to developing, implementing, and executing new digital marketing and fundraising strategies.
Technological constraints. What is the current state of your organization’s technological infrastructure?
Timing. Is the timing of the digital strategy aimed towards a certain date, such as Giving Tuesday, or an anniversary?
Staffing and labor. Is your current team enough to handle everything when it comes to your digital nonprofit strategy? Remember, you can also turn to volunteers or even a tech consultant for additional staffing.
4. Invest in the necessary tools
If you’re looking to really bring your digital nonprofit strategy to the next level, you might have to invest in a new tool or platform. The internet is always changing, with new ways to engage online popping up all the time. It’s worth it to review your current processes and make sure that it’s meeting the needs of your growing nonprofit and supporters.
Today, nonprofits see their digital engagement with supporters occur in these locations:
Nonprofit website
Online marketing campaigns
Social media activity
Email marketing campaigns
Is your current nonprofit solution doing all it can for the above channels? Consider the gaps in your toolkit or ways your tools could work better together. For example, let’s say your digital nonprofit strategy’s focus is social media and peer-to-peer engagement. Do you have all of the necessary accounts and fundraising tools you need?
Or, let’s say you’re pushing corporate giving. Does your organization have the appropriate tools in place to promote matching gifts and drive more match requests to completion? This might mean embedding an employer search tool into your donation form for donors to research their eligibility or enabling autosubmission tools to let donors automatically submit requests to employers post-donation.
Often, nonprofits seek the help of a nonprofit technology consultant at this stage. The right consultant can perform an audit of your nonprofit’s current tech solution and make suggestions. If your website no longer supports your growing organization, a consultant can help upgrade your current CMS platform or optimize it with extensions.
5. Align your messaging and content
Now that you have concrete goals and the tools to carry them out, it’s time to think about your marketing content. This is the voice of your nonprofit digital strategy and helps tell your story.
When it comes to the story you want to tell, you not only have to be true to your mission but also figure out how to tell it in easily shareable and digestible bites. Short, but emotionally investing, stories are much more likely to resonate with supporters and reach new prospects via reposting and sharing.
The content of your digital strategy should address your audience first. Remember how we defined the audience and developed personas in an earlier step? This data can now be used to personalize the messaging and content to each persona group.
For instance, consider the persona of a completely new supporter. Let’s imagine them stumbling upon your nonprofit website. To immediately connect with them through your content, consider embedding a high-quality image within your homepage of the community you help, along with some quick stats about why they are in need. This can capture the visitor’s attention and introduce them to the most immediate goals for your organization.
6. Consider the channels you use
You already know that the most important digital channels to your nonprofit digital strategy are your website, social media accounts, email campaigns, and any other online advertising.
But how do those channels work together?
Your nonprofit website is the central hub for your digital strategy. It can connect supporters to your email list, social media accounts, and is where they can give online. Your website needs to be well designed, informative, valuable, and fully integrated with your other online fundraising and CRM platforms.
Social media platforms are great for reaching wide audiences. Consider where your current supporters are most active online and focus on those few platforms to promote any upcoming campaigns, advertise blog posts, and share fun, but relevant, videos or viral challenges. Try to post content that encourages supporters to share it with their own network.
Email marketing is an essential part of your nonprofit digital strategy. Not only can you use it to reach a wide number of people at once, but you can also even create segmented email lists to cater to more of your specific audience personas. Make sure to track open and response rates to determine which email outreach tactics work best.
Online advertising and other digital marketing strategies are important for increasing visibility. This can include online ads on different websites or links back to your organization from other reputable charity organizations. This can also involve SEO techniques that help boost the visibility of your website and blog posts during organic internet searches.
7. Measure campaign’s success
The last thing you need to determine before you start employing your digital nonprofit strategy is how you’re going to measure success. This should have been outlined during the goal-setting stage, but you can take it to the next level with some key tools.
For instance, use your nonprofit tech solution to compile reports and compare metrics based on the combined data from all of your tools and marketing channels. What types of data points and metrics should you look at? Here are some of the top ones:
Completed donations
Volunteer applications
Email subscriptions
Pledge signatures
Email open rates
Email response rates
Website bounce rate
Online donation page bounce rate
Compile reports on these metrics prior to the campaign and after. This gives you a direct look into how your digital nonprofit strategy impacted and helped your organization.
5 Tips to Make The Most Of Your Nonprofit Digital Strategy
The best digital nonprofit strategy is data-based and audience-centric. While how you make the most of your own strategy is dependant on your organization and mission, here are the top tips that can help all nonprofit leaders:
Optimize for a mobile experience. Did you know that roughly 1-in-5 American adults are “smart-phone only” users? At every touchpoint in your digital nonprofit strategy, it’s crucial that you consider how this may look on a mobile device. Otherwise, you’re missing out on some key opportunities.
Use email appeals. Even as new technology and platforms arise, email is still the best way to reach your supporters online. Make sure that donors are aware of your email list and embed forms for users to opt-in on your website, social media accounts, and other relevant places. And don’t be afraid of being aggressive with your send schedule; data shows that while people may grumble about getting too much email, they still open, read, and interact with it.
Personalize messaging. Whenever you can, you should make your marketing content and messaging as personalized as possible. This is most used in email marketing, but can be implemented with text messaging and even within your website. For instance, consider creating specific landing pages for each of your audience personas to better target their needs.
Inbound marketing techniques. This involves all the ways you make it easy for supporters to find your nonprofit and is much more subtle than outright contacting them. For instance, creating educational blog posts, hosting events, implementing search engine optimization, and sharing social media posts are key inbound ways to build brand awareness. The more people see and recognize your nonprofit, the more likely they want to find out more and support your cause. Remember to always include a link to your nonprofit website and other specific landing pages so that supporters know how to take action if inspired.
Partner with a nonprofit tech consultant. Sometimes, partnering with a nonprofit tech consultant is the best method of truly optimizing your digital strategy. The right agency should work closely with your organization to become familiar with your goals, your audience, and current technology solution. Then, they can provide their expertise when it comes to optimizing that solution for your nonprofit’s needs.
If you think a nonprofit technology consultant is what you need, explore our own services to see if Kanopi is right for you.
How Kanopi Can Optimize Your Nonprofit Digital Strategy
A crucial component of any nonprofit digital strategy is the website. It’s the centralizing factor of almost all of your online engagements and where donors can make gifts. As a top partner for nonprofits, we at Kanopi Studios have helped develop over 150 active sites.
When you partner with us, we don’t just develop, maintain, and support your nonprofit website (though we are experts at it!). We like to think of ourselves as extensions of your organization. With thorough research and data analysis, we dive deep into your unique online audience and provide specific suggestions based on carefully crafted web personas.
We take a continuous improvement approach to website maintenance, as smaller and consistent fixes tend to be more beneficial to your website health than large systematic updates that only happen once a year.
Along with this, we also provide a website growth plan to help you make the most of your online presence even when our partnership is over. We don’t just set up your website and hand over the reins — you’ll get specific and customized next steps as to how to increase conversions and further expand your online platform.
If your site is already built on Drupal, or you’re considering the platform for your website, you’ve probably thought about what type of maintenance and support you’ll need to keep it up-to-date.
Whether it’s top-of-mind already, or you’re still looking for more information, this guide will help you understand why maintenance and support is an important part of your Drupal website strategy.
After a site’s been built, it still requires upkeep to ensure it’s operating effectively and meeting your company objectives. Many businesses still take a “set it and forget it” approach when it comes to their sites, leaving them with outdated content, version issues, and vulnerable to security threats.
Whether you’re on D7 and you’re thinking about end-of-life planning, or you’ve moved to a newer Drupal version already, it’s important to factor in Drupal maintenance and support to ensure you’re keeping your site healthy.
Keeping your website updated with current information and reflecting any time-sensitive changes
Essential Drupal Maintenance and Support Tasks
To ensure you have a website that functions optimally, you need to continuously update it. All Drupal websites are made up of a main Drupal core and various modules that require occasional updates. If you don’t run these updates and patches as they come, your website can be vulnerable to security threats and may have bugs and other malfunctions. It’s important to mention, this is not a Drupal-only requirement. All website platforms have similar needs when it comes to long-term maintenance.
Tasks that are key to a good Drupal maintenance plan include:
Consistent site backups
Drupal core updates
Up-to-date themes and modules
Optimized caching
Optimized database
Security updates
Module, theme, and library version updates
Third-party integration support
Regression testing
Bug resolution
Infrastructure maintenance
Uptime monitoring and abnormality alerts
Emergency support
Minor feature improvements
Some companies opt to take on their Drupal maintenance and support in-house, but it can be a time consuming process if your team lacks the skill set required to keep it working optimally. Even if you have the expertise internally, you may want to explore the option of outsourcing your Drupal maintenance and support to an agency to off load the work and allow your teams to focus on other priorities.
Shameless plug: We love Drupal at Kanopi! And, we love creating custom Drupal website maintenance and support plans for our clients.
Kanopi: The Best Drupal Website Maintenance and Support Service
By choosing an agency to manage your Drupal website maintenance and support, you gain a dedicated team with years of expertise. At Kanopi, we work with you closely to genuinely understand your business needs and create a plan to support it.
We do the ongoing work to stay updated with the latest industry trends and Drupal updates so we can be your trusted partner in the process. Kanopi also takes a continuous improvement and growth-driven approach with incremental improvements like navigation strategy and SEO fixes, so your site is always improving.
Features of Kanopi’s Drupal Maintenance Service
Here are some of our top Drupal maintenance and support services:
When you work with us, we also go way beyond the typical Drupal support and maintenance package. We provide creative support and ‘design on demand’, working with you on anything from user research, persona development, and conversion optimization to wireframing, mood boards, and style guides.
Mukurtu (MOOK-oo-too) is the Warumungu word meaning ‘safe keeping place.’ It is also the name of an open-source content management system (CMS) designed to help Indigenous communities conserve and archive culturally significant materials.
It’s a pivotal time for Mukurtu CMS.
This past October, they received their 3rd and largest grant from the Mellow Foundation. This award aims to help digitally return items to Indigenous communities in North America through archives as part of the Mukurtu platform expansion, called Shared.
Since its launch in 2007, more than 600 Indigenous groups have used the software to curate websites and control access while observing customs.
Here at Kanopi Studios, we believe in putting inclusivity, cultural sensitivity, and user needs at the center of web design and development to ensure that technology is a force for good. It’s an honor to have partnered with Washington State University (WSU) to contribute in the development of the open-source CMS.
Learn more about Mukurtu CMS, how it supports Indigenous communities both here in North America and worldwide, and how to get started with the platform.
Mukurtu is a free content management system built using Drupal that helps Indigenous communities manage, share, and exchange their heritage in culturally relevant and ethically-minded ways.
The name Mukurtu was chosen in 2007 when Warumungu community members collaborated with developers and scholars on the platform’s first iteration to produce the Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari Archive. By sharing their voices, Indigenous cultures can preserve their history and way of life, educate others, and seek support as needed.
But by doing so, they also run the risk of losing control and ownership of the narrative. The Mukurtu project helps to solve that problem. The open-source CMS allows Indigenous cultures to share their heritage on their terms, eliminating the potential for exploitation or misrepresentation.
The power of Mukurtu comes from its complex and layered permission system that goes far beyond the capabilities of traditional content management systems. The system is purpose-built to allow Indigenous communities to maintain control over how information is shared, who they share it with, and how they use it.
2. How Mukurtu CMS Supports Indigenous Communities
Mukurtu is flexible enough to support diverse communities while remaining easy to use so that even your most non-technical users can add and update content and permissions.
Core features include:
Traditional knowledge labels allow communities to add labels to content that describe how that content can be accessed, used, and circulated, and to whom it needs to be attributed.
Cultural protocols allow for finely-grained content access settings that can be customized on an ongoing basis to meet each community’s needs and values, from wide open to restricted at the individual level.
Community records allow multiple ways to store information about cultural heritage, so critical details and diverse perspectives are maintained.
Data integrity uses file hashes to ensure that files are not tampered with, ensuring that content remains intact over time.
Adictionary, complete with translations, definitions, pronunciations, audio recordings, and other media, helps Indigenous communities in the teaching, learning, and the use of the language, as well as with preservation and documentation.
Unit plans and lessons give educators and students a platform to engage in online and field learning through the site.
Indigenous communities worldwide use the open-source CMS to record, preserve, and share their heritage, including the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal, Passamaquoddy People, Catawba Indian Nation Archives, and many more.
Mukurtu’s Impact on the Future
The ability to access digital archives of Indigenous materials helps communities learn more about their heritage and culture. The materials can restore languages and cultural practices in schools and assist with negotiating treaty rights.
Those who use Mukurtu CMS are able to go far beyond providing a culturally sensitive way for groups to share their stories digitally — it helps correct historical inaccuracies for the benefit of the wider public.
From our relationship with the land as we experience the devastating impacts of climate change to understanding the need for connection during this time of global pandemic and political divide, we all benefit by learning from the Indigenous cultures within their communities.
3.Mukurtu CMS & Kanopi Studios
Kanopi Studios joined the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation (CDSC) at WSU and the Center for Digital Archaeology (CoDA) as a development partner to complete a research-guided approach that included focus groups and surveys with users to inform the project’s technical strategy and development.
Kanopi has been honored to have a role in development, adding features based on user requests and ensuring that the system remains easy to use, secure, and scalable. New features include an improved mobile experience and robust collaboration capabilities with a mobile app coming soon that will allow users to browse and add content from the field, even while offline.
Kanopi Studios also works directly with clients who want to use Mukurtu and enhance the system to meet unique needs.
We helped the Indigenous people of Kivalina, Alaska, share 33 years of history online by creating 340 digital heritage categories and 137 digital heritage items:
“The result has been for us what we hoped for. It’s given us a platform.”
Michael Grace, Relocate Kivalina
4. Getting started with Mukurtu CMS
If you have technical support and hosting available, you can download Mukurtu on Github and begin using it for free. If you need technical assistance and additional customization, consider partnering with a development agency with insight into this particular open-source CMS and the communities it supports.
Mukurtu CMS & Mukurtu Mobile: Key Dates
Mukurtu 3.0 is expected in early 2021 and is an extension of 2.0. The main difference between the 2 versions is mobile support. The 3.0 version will only be compatible with the mobile 3.0 application. Version 3.0 uses Drupal 7, which has an end-of-life date of Nov 2022, meaning it shares the same end-of-life date. It is possible to have a Mukurtu website that remains a powerful resource for your community beyond its end-of-life date, with the right maintenance and support.
Mukurtu Mobile
Mukurtu Mobile is a long-awaited significant upgrade to the Mukurtu experience, which lets you create, view, and edit content from a phone. There is already a much simpler mobile app, but it only allows for Digital Heritage item creation, and it is only for iOS. The new app works on Android or iOS and contains much more functionality to deliver a near desktop-like experience within the simplicity of a mobile app.
Also new is the fact that it works without an internet connection. You’ll be able to view and edit content offline, and your content will sync with your website once back on an internet connection. Users can create Digital Heritage items live from the field, even in the most remote locations, using their phone camera for field imagery. When they are within cell or wifi range again, their content will sync back to their Mukurtu site.
Kanopi would love to help you with your Mukurtu site; contact us today to ensure the safekeeping of culturally significant materials online.
That’s a huge number. Believe it or not, in early 2020 it was estimated that around 455,000,000 active websites were using WordPress. In fact, 43% of the internet(updated for 2022) uses WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System). It’s used for everything, including personal websites, small businesses, enterprise corporations, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, entertainment providers, governments, and even the occasional site dedicated to someone’s pet hamster.
Hamsters aside, there’s a lot that goes into maintaining a WordPress site, especially if you’re looking for longevity, security, and the ability to grow. So we’ve put together a guide to help you sort out what you need to make your site last, stay safe, and continue to meet your needs down the road.
I am often asked about my career as a developer and what qualifications are needed. I always tell people, “The web changes every day. In three months I’ll be using techniques I’ve never heard of before. Three months after that, it’ll be something else that’s brand new. It’s always changing.”
It’s great because I enjoy the constant ‘upward and onward’ feeling of the job, but for site owners, it means a lot of upkeep. What’s standard today could be different in a month. To make sure your WordPress website stays healthy and up-to-date with the internet, you’ve got to commit to regular, ongoing website maintenance. While hosting companies will maintain your site’s server (the place that your website lives on the internet), most don’t offer the kinds of hands-on updates and support that your specific website needs.
Common WordPress Maintenance Tasks
Backups
You’re not really a web developer until you’ve deleted something you really needed and had to restore it (I’m pretty sure that’s on the entrance exam). Most hosts offer backup plans, or at the very least provide you with a method of downloading your own backups. At Kanopi Studios, we use hosts that provide daily backups and let us create manual backups, ensuring we have total control in the event a site needs to be restored. It’s the only reason I can sleep at night.
WordPress Core
WordPress is a growing, living thing. That’s what those little version numbers really mean. Version 5.4.2 is out as of this writing, and you can bet your hamster that 5.4.3 is currently being worked on. Core updates include security updates, as well as new or updated features that your developer can use to do cool stuff!
The real linchpin though are the security updates; when a security problem is found and resolved by the team, they release an updated version of Core, along with an explanation of that flaw. That means that the same security bug is now public knowledge and available to nerdowells to take advantage of. That’s why it is so important to update in a timely manner after a new Core release.
Theme & Plugin Updates
Likewise, purchased themes or third party plugins are subject to change for similar reasons— plugging security holes or adding new and improved features. It’s good practice to update these elements at least once a quarter in order to stay on top of it. Plus, it’s almost always easier to jump between minor versions (eg. 6.4.2 to 6.4.5) than to wait and go from one major release to another (eg. 4.3.1 to 6.4.5). Although, it is a good way to get that adrenaline pumping, especially if you don’t have backups (please do not do this).
Transients & Caching
Both servers and browsers cache websites in order to deliver content faster. A cache essentially stores a “snapshot” of a website and then delivers that snapshot in order to reduce load time. Of course, as a website owner, you want this snapshot to update when new information is added. Sometimes caching can be too aggressive, or even non-existent. It’s valuable to address the needs of your specific website when determining what kinds of caching should be leveraged on your site. WordPress also uses something called transients, which allows developers to add additional caching for specific types of database queries. This is essential for large or complex sites.
Caching can be done in a number of ways: your website host will have caching, you may have a third party caching plugin or service, a developer could add caching specific code, or maybe a combination of all three.
Database Optimization
Over time new content is being added to your website database, with either new rows/columns of data or new database tables, or new connections between tables. It’s like your website’s filing cabinet, going back to the beginning of time. This growth can get messy if it’s not maintained and pruned regularly. Some hosts offer manual ‘one click’ database optimization solutions, though for a real thorough cleanup you need someone with the technical know-how and familiarity with your site. Also, backups. Always backups.
Why is WordPress Maintenance and Support So Important?
To answer this question, we have to consider another: what happens if you don’t do these things? What if you just pop a site up on a host somewhere and never touch it again?
Best case scenario, nothing. Your site exists, but that’s about it. As the rest of the web moves forward, your site will be left in the dust. Even search engines will ‘forget’ about it, so to speak, as higher priority is given to sites that are modified on a regular basis. And since SEO and performance, and user expectations are evolving monthly, your site will quickly become a dinosaur nobody uses.
Worst case scenarios are far more interesting to talk about. With all those security holes, from the lack of updates to Core and your third party plugins, the site could easily be hacked — remember, when they release the fix, they are also revealing the security flaw. If you have no backups, you can’t restore to a version before the hack (where it will still be vulnerable to the same hack).
Or your website host could one day alert you that they no longer support the version of PHP or mySQL your site is using. Some hosts automatically update these tools, some even update Core for you, but not your plugins. Depending on how out-of-date your site is, these would be site breaking compatibility issues. Imagine depending on your website for income and then losing that overnight.
Obviously it is a huge risk to keep a poorly or unmaintained website. Meanwhile the benefits of good maintenance and consistent support far outweigh the costs. You reduce security risks, stay current with SEO trends and requirements, and have the ability to grow your site and use new and updated features. All of these things can lead to more traffic, and more conversions overall.
But it’s also time consuming to do, and requires some research and expertise in hosting, WordPress, and website development. Especially for sites that require daily upkeep. That’s why so many organizations and businesses turn to providers like Kanopi to lighten the load.
Kanopi: The Best WordPress Maintenance and Support Service
Forgive me if I’m a little biased, after all I do work here, but I really do think Kanopi offers the best support. We work with some great hosting partners who understand what we’re about, and it lets us really hold the right reins when it comes to our client sites. Our developers are experienced with the CMS, and strive to uphold the standards put out by WordPress itself.
Top Features of Kanopi’s WordPress Maintenance Service
Kanopi’s got a well-rounded team of experienced designers, strategists, and developers, which means we can actually support your WordPress website at any stage of its lifecycle. Got a lemon that needs a serious overhaul? Need a complete rebuild? Have a freshly built higher ed website that needs extra care to keep it going? We’ve got the combination of skills and people needed to handle your website wherever it’s at.
Like your site, our team is also always growing their knowledge base. We stay up-to-date with security releases, changes to WordPress Core, industry standards, and new technologies. If the next version of PHP is on the way, we’re already preparing your site for the update.
Maintenance and support sounds very technical, and it’s easy to overlook that this includes general website content and functionality. A good portion of my day is spent doing content or code updates for clients, and one of my goals is to leave it better than I found it. Sometimes that means cleaning up a bit of code in the area I’m working on, or refining an animation, or adding additional accessibility to the content I was given.
We’re not just about keeping your website running, Kanopi wants to work closely with you to genuinely understand your organization. Forging this partnership allows us to help create a website that truly represents you as we strategize together. We take a continuous improvement and growth driven approach with incremental updates like navigation strategy and SEO fixes that boost your site over time.
Pantheon is one of Kanopi’s partners for a reason! We love using their platform for hosting WordPress sites. They’ve got a number of powerful features that are super useful for iterative development and rollouts, and you can even check your plugin versions right from the dashboard with security alerts attached.
WPEngine: WordPress Host
WPEngine specializes in WordPress hosting, which means they know the ins and outs of the CMS and can help with a number of problems. Their support is fast, knowledgeable, and dedicated. Their platform also keeps up with the latest stable PHP version and WordPress Core, with easy testing and deployment.
Yoast SEO: WordPress Search Engine Optimization
This is a plugin we regularly use and recommend for WordPress websites. Yoast automatically adds basic schema data to your website, creates a sitemap xml, and gives you control to create dynamically generated metadata for your various post types. The free version is absolutely sufficient, and can be augmented with other free plugins to address things found in the paid version.
Kraken.io: WordPress Image Compression
Images make up a lot of your website’s “weight,” which is why it’s necessary to optimize image compression and keep things nice and trim. Kraken.io is a paid service with a WordPress plugin that allows you to create optimized images for your website. It’s fast, professional, and helps reduce those website load times.
PageSpeed insights: Google Website Analyzer
This handy tool gives you a quick overview of how well your site is doing across the board, including performance, SEO, accessibility, and best practices. Put any url in and see how it stacks up compared to Google’s standards. You can also download this as an extension (Google Lighthouse) for Chrome and run it directly in your browser.
To wrap this up in a neat little package, yes, you do need to maintain your WordPress website, yes, there’s a lot to do, and yes, someone else can do it for you. If you’re interested in a partnership with Kanopi, we’d love to hear from you. Otherwise I hope this guide gets you pointed in the right direction as you and Hammy take on the internet.
When you build a new house, you (hopefully) don’t ignore it for years after it’s completed until the roof starts to leak and the basement floods. Ideally, you get the support of professionals to help you with regular maintenance, such as getting your gutters cleared, or draining water out of your heater.
Similar to keeping your home in good shape, your website needs regular care and attention. And similar to leaving something minor unchecked in your house, ignoring your website after launch can turn into a much bigger problem further down the line.
A great, ROI generating website requires continuous improvement. While some agencies don’t offer support after launch, we at Kanopi strongly believe in caring for the entire lifecycle of your website. This is why in addition to designing and building websites, we provide holistic website support after launch.
Website support cannot be an afterthought.
The day your site goes live is really the day your project begins. As your virtual storefront, consider your website a living, breathing extension of your business. Your website build should not be a one-off business transaction, but rather a long term investment to help your business grow and meet the needs of your users today and tomorrow.
Would you go on vacation without getting a trusted friend or relative to water your much-loved plants? Website support is more or less the same, although the stakes are much higher. Put money aside for upgrades, security fixes, content reviews, and integration checks to protect your site from needing a potentially major overhaul further down the line. Otherwise you risk having your site wither away, which can be much more costly (a lot more than replacing a neglected house plant.)
Placing support in the ‘nice-to-have’ column is essentially doing only 1% of what needs to happen after launching your website. The web evolves constantly. And more critically, the most important people who use your website — your users — also will have shifting needs and behaviors. Your web presence has to adapt and adjust in real-time if it’s to keep supporting you in achieving your business goals and meeting the needs of your users. This is why support is a critical part of your business success.
Because advancements in website technology emerge daily, it’s our job at Kanopi to stay on top of the latest trends and breakthroughs in web design and user experience. Support post-launch means you won’t miss out on opportunities to keep your site optimized through iterative improvements.
How, what, and when?
That’s entirely up to you! Don’t fret if you feel you don’t have the time or expertise to give your website the attention it deserves. You’re not alone! It can be daunting trying to keep your website up to date and relevant. Designers say only 11% of clients are able to update their sites on their own post-launch.
What should you be keeping an eye on when it comes to supporting your website? Some common areas that benefit from ongoing attention are:
Security upgrades: making sure your code and software are updated keeps your site and your user’s valuable data safe.
Software updates: keep your site running smoothly and as fast as possible.
Regular backups: sites can break, but should not have to be often rebuilt. Give yourself peace of mind with regular code and content backups.
UX reviews: is your site meeting the needs of your users? Customer behaviors change. Ensure you’re staying nimble enough to adapt to those changes.
Fresh content: engage your users and turn them into repeat customers with new, relevant information about your product or service.
Smart content: search engines love fresh content from sites that are speedy and free of errors. Ensure your business is visible online with content that can easily get indexed.
Kanopi is nimble and agile when it comes to maintaining the performance of our client’s websites. We offer different levels of support, which means we can help you find the right amount of assistance to fit your specific needs.
How is website support from Kanopi different?
It can be hard to find website support with creative enhancements included. Like other agencies that offer support, we perform bug fixes, security upgrades, and integration checks. But what makes Kanopi Studios unique is our more comprehensive approach:
We provide deep dives into feature enhancements for your site;
We review and help you improve your user experience (UX);
We prioritize a great customer service experience.
The best websites meet the needs of their users. Do you know who your users are and what their needs are? We recommend researching your users through interviews, creating user personas, and mapping your customer decision journey. And because your users’ needs and behaviors can change, we can test assumptions about your users on a regular basis.
We design beautiful, easy to use websites, but we understand that your website is only as good as its content. We can help you audit, migrate, and publish content on your site. In addition, we can help you develop smart content that gets indexed by search engines, improving the visibility of your business online.
From support with the development and design of Drupal and WordPress sites to training and help to create your content strategy, Kanopi can assist you in keeping your site optimized and up to date. Think of it as insurance to ensure your site is running at it’s very best.
We can help.
We’ve partnered with some great businesses and organizations recently, giving them a helping hand with keeping their website operating at its best. Check out our support case studies to learn more about our holistic approach to continuous website improvement.
Contact us so we can support you in keeping your website optimized, meeting the needs of your users, and helping you achieve your business goals now and for the long-term.
Have you ever wished you could access an entire website agency’s genius on an as-needed basis? Have you worked with website support agencies that were good at keeping your site running and your software up to date, but less able to ensure its continued success?
Web support is one of our strengths, mainly because we do it differently than other agencies. Support at Kanopi Studios is so much more than quick bug fixes and software updates; you’ll get access to an entire team of senior-level experts as needed, from user experience to design to development — all within a set monthly budget.
Here are some examples of design services you can get in support:
Rethinking your navigation.
Incorporating new branding (logos, colors, typography, theming, etc).
Reimagining your homepage, increasing conversions, while keeping your software up to date.
The Kanopi team’s ability to offer a full range of flexible services is just one of the ways we go above and beyond to support our client’s needs.
Turning concepts into masterpieces
“Many of our clients start with great ideas of their own, and may even have sketches of what they are looking for,” says Denise Beyer, Director of Support. “Bringing a designer in to hear their ideas, learn about their goals, and ask the right questions always adds an extra level of creativity and polish to the final design.”
Even a small investment in design can help you save budget in the long run. A few quick design mockups can help teams evaluate options and think through solutions before they are built, ensuring that the work gets done right the first time.
“If your users repeatedly call you for help with the same issue, or have a hard time finding information on your site, our user experience team members can help,” Denise says. “We’ve worked with nonprofits to help increase their donations, helped website users find answers to common questions, increased conversions for businesses, and much more.”
Making smart look and feel updates
The Kanopi design team also offers branding support, whether you need an updated logo, a fresh look on specific pages, or a re-skin for your entire website.
“Some of our clients work with outside branding agencies and just need their websites to fit a new look, and others look to our team to help them update their brand design,” Denise shared. “We meet our clients where they are and are available to help with whatever is needed.”
See our work in action
Below, we’ve included a few examples of design projects that our support team has completed for our amazing clients.
Look and feel refresh for Gray’s Sporting Journal
The Kanopi team helped Gray’s Sporting Journal reimagine their website design. The refresh made calls to action more visible, provided a structure for featuring important content, and updated the layout for a clean, modern look.
BEFORE: Grays’ Sporting Journal Homepage
AFTER: Grays’ Sporting Journal Homepage
Streamlined navigation and updated customer success pages for Big Switch Networks
Big switch needed an improved way to highlight customer success stories and help users navigate their site. Kanopi’s support team helped them organize content to create a menu navigation system that allows users to see options within each section of the site. In addition, the team helped Big Switch modernize their customer success page to tell a complete story about the industries and customers they serve.
BEFORE: Big Switch customer success pageAFTER: Big Switch customer success page
Site redesign for Fly Tyer Magazine
Kanopi’s support team helped Fly Tyer magazine go from a static website to a clean and modern design that features homepage animation and large, impactful images on interior pages that help tell their story.
BEFORE: FlyTyer Homepage
AFTER: FlyTyer Homepage
A new look each year for American Epilepsy Society’s Annual Meeting
Each year, the American Epilepsy Society relies on Kanopi’s support team to update its website design to match the annual conference theme and location.
BEFORE: AES homepage for the 2018 MeetingAFTER: AES homepage for the 2019 Meeting
A clean, clear homepage for UCSF’s Department of Urology
Kanopi updated the UCSF Urology Department’s homepage with new colors and a cleaner layout that highlights key actions and resources for their audience.
BEFORE: UCSF Urology Homepage
AFTER: UCSF Urology Homepage
Working with Kanopi’s support team
The Kanopi team looks at your site holistically, rather than as a series of tasks. When you work with us, you’re hiring a team of senior-level experts who are available on-demand to help with all types of website updates. And no job is too big or too small.
Ready to learn more? Contact us to discuss ongoing improvements for your website.
