The internet presence of Dutch charity organisations

12 dec 2006

8270 viewsrating: rating: 4 of 5

comments: 0

Charity organisations are dealing with high accountability and transparency standards and increasing stakeholder needs to donate online or to subscribe online for voluntary work. In this article Jungle Rating examines the online presence of 11 Dutch charity organisations.

Dutch charity websites more ‘corporate’ than ‘marketing’

Websites of charity organisations basically have two types of content: ‘marketing’ and ‘corporate’ information. An analysis of the division of ‘corporate’ and ‘marketing’ information on the homepages of 11 Dutch charities, shows the following results:

Dutch charity websites are predominantly corporate driven, providing news, information on projects and/or information on campaigns. A call to action to become a volunteer or to make a donation is available on all homepages, but to varying extents. Plan Nederland, for example, only offers information on the organisation and its projects within the content of the homepage. In the main navigation they offer a relatively weak call for action; ‘what can you do’. Artsen zonder Grenzen (Médecins Sans Frontières), on the other hand, stimulates its visitors multiple times to come into action on its homepage: ‘help us , ‘support us’, ‘donate now’, ‘subscribe to our newsletter’. The following images show the division of both ‘corporate’ (grey) and ‘marketing’ (blue) information on the homepage of Plan Nederland and Artsen Zonder Grenzen (MSF).

Above: www.plannederland.nl – corporate oriented
Below: www.artsenzondergrenzen.nl (MSF) – Mix corporate (grey) and marketing (blue) information
Four charity organisations distinguish two or more target groups on their websites: in all cases a combination of donors, volunteers and youth. Donors and volunteers are to be expected to provide support. The content of the websites however, is in most cases only informative and not referring to a call to action.

Accountability

Five charities provide a clear overview of their mission and strategy. The others either lack a strategic paragraph or do not disclose it clearly in the ‘about us’ section of the website. Most of the Dutch organisations include some form of financial report on their website, indicating how expenses were allocated. Financial information has solely been disclosed in annual reports in PDF. As a result, financial information (factual material) is not as accessible as possible. CARE, a U.S. based charity, provides factual information within the content of the project with a simple graph.

Communicating results: by undertaken activities - US organisation CARE (www.care.org)

Online giving not ideal yet

The vast majority of all charities (9 out of 11) offer the ‘traditional’ possibility to set up a regular direct debit and/or a one-time donation by bank account debit.
Amnesty, MsF and Memisa are the only charities which offer the possibility to donate online with credit card as well as with iDeal. iDeal is a Dutch online payment system, which allows visitors to transfer money directly from their bank account to the bank account of the recipient (e.g. charity organisation).
Cordaid and Plan Nederland do not provide any possibilities for online donations at all.

There seems to be an opportunity for Dutch charities to increase the adoption of internet specific means to make a donation (credit card and iDeal).

6 out of 11 charities show what they do

The internet offers charities some unique possibilities to visualise the organisations’ projects. Among the group of 11 Dutch charities, 55% present videos and/or slideshows to show project or campaign information. Slideshows are a good alternative to video since the slides can be updated quickly without having to spend a lot of money. Additionally the organisations can add a clear call to action after showing the video: ‘help us and donate now', like for example the American organisation CARE does on care.org.

CARE (www.care.org): clear call to action after a slideshow

Charity organisations easy to reach

The possibilities for a visitor to get into contact with the organisation are overall clearly presented. The way visitors are stimulated to engage in a dialogue differs. Amnesty provides a one-way weblog, in which Amnesty employees discuss their week. WNF and Artsen zonder Grenzen enable a two–way dialogue between the visitor and the organisation, within their weblogs.

After having taken a closer look at 11 Dutch charities, we can conclude that some have yet adopted a web-based approach of communication and attracting donations. Others will have to assess their web presence and establish a clear web strategy.

Things to remember:

Think about the distinction between ‘marketing’ and ‘corporate’ information on the homepage
Consider to offer visitors the possibility to make a donation with credit card and/or iDeal, next to direct debits.
Use multimedia to increase the tangibility of projects and campaigns. Present slide-shows in case you do not have a large budget for shooting films.
Provide factual information within the content of projects
Provide information on the organisation's mission and strategy