All nonprofits should be aware of TechSoup, which offers software to nonprofits at a substantial discount on behalf of most of the major software companies. They also offer a newsletter, with the current issue providing an excellent article on the web design process.

Tips for Designing (or Redesigning) a Nonprofit Web Site

What are the steps and skills needed to plan a major site redesign?

By: Chris Peters

June 16, 2009

If your organization is building a new Web site from scratch — or updating an existing one — you may need to rely on professional help when it comes to design and implementation. The following guidelines can help you plan and design a polished, functional site that meets your organization's needs.

This article focuses on the high-level management and planning decisions you need to make when you design or re-design your Web site. We'll discuss some of the major phases of a design project, some of the lingo and jargon you'll encounter and the tools and skill sets you might need

Web sites are especially prone to scaling problems. In other words, a minor detail that's easy to overlook in the early stages of the Web design process can turn into a major problem that takes weeks to fix when the site starts to grow. If you're certain that your Web site will always be small and fairly static, you still need to do some planning, but some of the steps in this article will be more work than necessary. On the other hand, if your site is large, if the content changes frequently, or you have complicated Web-based applications, the questions below are more likely to be relevant. By working slowly and in stages, you decrease the chances that you'll make a major mistake that will haunt you down the road.

Read full article