Is Your Web Site Ready for Year-End Appeals? There’s an App for That

As many nonprofit organizations step up their fund-raising efforts during the last two months of the year, it would behoove them to know whether their Web sites actually make it easy for people to find information and make a gift.

Now Blue State Digital, a technology consulting firm, is offering charities a free Web application to help them evaluate how well their sites will fare in year-end fund raising.

“There are organizations that expect a fair amount of money in December,” said Ben Bullock, Blue State Digital’s director of analytics. “It’s a significant buoy to their budget. We want them to have a head start for optimizing key metrics for year-end fund raising.”

He says that small- to medium-size organizations “don’t have the luxury of an in-house analyst,” and so the readiness-report tool may be the next best thing.

Charities can log on to https://ready.bluestatedigital.com, link their Web site’s Google Analytics data, and then receive a “readiness score,” which is based on a scale of 100. A score of 33 or below will light up a red box; 34 to 66, an orange one; and 67 to 100, green. The score is part of a “readiness report” that also gives concrete steps charities can take to make their Web sites better.

“The main thing for end-of-year fund raising is making it easy for would-be donors to give money,” Mr. Bullock says. That means streamlining the donation process.

Otherwise, he says, charities may be losing money simply because of a “layout issue or a wording issue” on key parts of the site.

Mr. Bullock’s biggest recommendation for charity Web sites? Make the donate button easy to spot.