The situation

You know that your website is due for a redesign. Probably overdue. It’s creating more questions than it’s answering. Questions you have to answer. All while working around the things it can’t do. And the more content you add, the more of it gets lost in your ballooning sitemap.

If that sounds familiar, then you’ve probably also been doing research and even talking to agencies. And you’ve probably dropped some hints to your board or reported on how the website is affecting your team’s capacity.

Now it’s time to make your case more directly. You know the investment is justified, and so will your board if you frame it in terms that speak to them.

Lead with mission, not technology

Board members care about reaching organizational goals, not understanding WordPress or WCAG compliance. So frame the conversation around where the website isn’t supporting your mission.

If your website is:

  • Preventing visitors from becoming donors by introducing friction into the donation process

  • Undermining your efforts with funders by presenting your organization as less credible than it is

  • Creating cognitive dissonance between your values and digital presence because it’s inaccessible

  • Taking time away from staff who could be working on program delivery, but are stuck troubleshooting issues and following convoluted workarounds

Then you’ve got compelling arguments, rooted in your mission, to lead with. The technical issues behind them can take a backseat.

Speak to the cost of inaction

When your board considers the cost of investing in a new website, a great way to frame that cost is to make the cost of not investing just as real. Because it is, and it compounds over time.

Donation friction

If your website makes it difficult to donate to your organization, you can share an estimate of lost donations over a year or two with your board. Maybe your donation page doesn’t function properly on mobile devices, or the donation process needs to be simplified. In either case, the cost of those lost donations can outweigh the cost of a redesign. To do this, review your Google Analytics and look for a gap between the number of people who visited your donation page and those who reached the thank-you page. If you use a dedicated donation platform, check to see if it tracks initiated vs. completed transactions. While some degree of drop off is expected, a conversion rate of 8-22% is also expected. Anything lower than that is a lost opportunity.

Staff time

Think about the number of hours your team spends each month on website-related troubleshooting and workarounds. Are you manually updating things that should be automated? Are you fielding questions that are already answered somewhere on your website? Are you struggling to format content because that requires coding knowledge or complicated page-builder chops? Those are billable hours that could be spent working on your mission. Multiply those hours by staff hourly rate(s), and you get an idea of the real cost involved.

Credibility with funders

This one is harder to quantify, but could be significant. Foundations and institutional partners look at your website. If you pull up your site next to one of a peer organization’s, is their site faster to load, does it look more polished and professional, and does it seem like someone puts more care into updating it regularly? These are the same differences that a funder will notice and will use to assess your organization’s reputation.

Legal and compliance risk

Depending on your location, accessibility compliance, or lack thereof, is a real legal liability. Both in Canada and the United States, legislation is tightening, and remediation is a risk management strategy rather than an enhancement. Risk-conscious boards will understand and respond well to this concern.

Present the investment across its lifespan

A well-built and well-maintained custom website is one of the most cost-effective communications investments a nonprofit can make. However, the sticker shock of the website redesign can be challenging to overcome if you simply look at it as a single number. Take a $60,000 project and consider that the website it gets you will serve your organization for at least six years. Break that down by year and month. At roughly $830 per month, your new website will support every donor communication, grant application, program launch, new staff onboarding and so on. Compared to what you spend annually on other communications expenditures, the investment becomes a no-brainer. Your board just needs to see this comparison clearly to appreciate it.

Connect it to a strategic moment

When your organization is already committed to or planning for a major change or milestone, your website is the necessary infrastructure to support that moment. You might be working on a new strategic plan that significantly shifts your organization’s priorities. Or there is a major anniversary coming up. Perhaps your leadership is planning a transition or expanding programming. If your website is likely to attract more visitors and more scrutiny, the investment you make into making it meet the moment isn’t discretionary but essential to supporting your evolving organization.

Questions to anticipate

Of course, any board will do its due diligence and ask questions before making any approvals. And you might as well do yours and be prepared. You’re likely to hear the following:

Why now?

Look at the costs your website is incurring, the cost of inaction. The lost donations, staff inefficiency, and damage to your credibility. Every month you wait, those costs continue to add up. If you’re working toward a strategic moment, you have a concrete window when the new site needs to be ready. Either way, the longer the wait, the more expensive the problem becomes.

Which agency?

If you’ve already evaluated a number of agencies and are coming to your board with a specific choice, then be prepared to share a clear explanation for how you evaluated the available options. Oftentimes, though, your board will need to approve the project budget before you’re able to officially start evaluating agency fit. Knowing that you’re likely to head into an RFP process, showing a bit of extra forethought will build confidence with your board. Let them know what criteria you will be using to evaluate a good fit and, perhaps, even a few agencies you’ve already researched as potential candidates.

Does our team have the capacity to take this on?

This is a fantastic question because a website redesign is, ultimately, a whole new project on top of what’s likely already a team operating at capacity. What your board wants to hear is that you have clearly identified which team members will be leading and participating in the work. If your organization has busy seasons due to annual events, publication dates, or program timing, showing that you’ve considered this is key. You might need to reduce the scale of these activities while going through the website redesign process. Or you might need to bring in additional help. Including this in your calculations will show your board that you’re looking at the process realistically.

Can we do this for less?

Sure, there’s a solution for every price point. But you get what you pay for. A lower price point means that something will get cut, which will have implications for the overall quality of your new website. If you’re talking about what the failures of your current website are costing your organization, then getting a new website that doesn’t fully address them wouldn’t be a smart investment. You might not be able to get all the functionalities you need. Or you might have to scale back on important process steps or cut them out entirely. Can you have a new website without discovery? Technically, yes. But it won’t be as good as a website that was built with a full understanding of your and your audience’s needs. You can also launch a website that was never tested and validated by your community members. But be prepared to have to do a follow-up project to address their feedback shortly after launch. Lower budget comes with real tradeoffs.

Strengthen your case

There are a few things that tend to move board conversations forward and support your case:

Analytics

Data is hard to ignore. Analytics lets you show, without a shadow of a doubt, that mobile traffic share is high while sharing feedback from your audience members that your website’s mobile experience needs improvement. It allows you to calculate donation page abandonment rates. Numbers make these issues concrete.

Comparisons

Comparison might be the thief of joy, but it can also be an eye-opener. While taste is subjective, your board members are likely to respond to examples of websites from your sector that represent where you’d like to go. Showing them your vision and the current landscape also often goes further than paragraphs of written explanations.

A clear recommendation

We’ve all been in our fair share of board meetings that seemed to go on forever. Make it easy for your board to support decisions you’ve already made. Rather than presenting them with decisions between multiple budgets or multiple agencies, come with a clear recommendation. The ask is for them to approve, not help you make a decision.

Appealing to your board

Ultimately, your board wants your organization to succeed. Show them clearly where the website is failing and what it would take to fix it. When presented in terms that speak to them, you’re offering them a straightforward decision to approve.