FUNDERS COMMITTEE FOR CIVIC PARTICIPATION

Website Analysis and Recommendations

March 14, 2012Team Members: Shweta Aora, Kira Bacon, Aisha Bowers, Stacia Kirby, Diana McSweeney, Jon Palmer

FCCP Overview

“Bringing together grant-makers committed to enhancing

democratic participation in all aspects of civic life.”

 

Mission

• Promote civic participation as a key to making democracy work

• Priority issues:– Voter engagement– Election administration– Ballot initiatives– Census– Election reform and redistricting

Primary Goal

• Build a vibrant, effective national network of funders/grant-makers committed to ensuring that democracy works by providing them with a:– community in which to build connections– stage for showing innovations– forum for strategic dialogue and collaboration– resource for civic participation research, tools

and news

Member Profile

• Leaders in the philanthropic community working to further FCCP’s vision

• Member Profile 

– 66 philanthropic organizations/foundations with missions that are local, national or global in scale

– Majority of members are small- to mid-sized, but include heavy-hitters like the Ford Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, Rockefeller Family Fund and W.K. Kellogg Foundation

– Annual grant-making budgets run from $200K-$20MM

 

Website Overview

• Strengths– Clean, uncluttered visuals and graphics– Prominent display of mission statement

• Weaknesses– Disconnect between FCCP’s goal of engagement

and collaboration and lack of opportunities for members to connect through the website

– Content is dated and stale– Site does not enable member collaboration– Several key entry points have broken links

Google Analytics Basic Traffic Overview

• Site live to public in August 2011• Unique visitors to date: 5,014 • Total visits: 7,266 with 21,447 page views• Average time on site: 02:50• Average pages per visit: 4.3• Bounce rate: 54.4%• New visits: 67.6%• Visits from U.S.: 94.3%

Google Analytics Traffic Sources Overview

• Search traffic: 66.7%• Referral traffic: 10.9%• Direct traffic: 22.6%• Search engine: 90.9% Google• Primary referral: funders.digitalaid.net

(17.4%)• #1 landing page is a broken link! (403.html

error page)

Google Analytics New vs. Returning Visitor Analysis

• New visitor– Visits: 67.6%– Pages/visit: 2.4– Average time on site: 01.43– Bounce rate: 59.1%

• Returning visitor– Visits: 32.4%– Pages/visit: 4.1– Average time on site: 05.08– Bounce rate: 44.5%

Google Analytics Findings

• Low total traffic and low repeat visits• Short time on site – less than two minutes• Very low referral traffic• High percentage (28%) of new visitors

landing on broken links

Google Analytics Findings

Flowchart w/ Announcements & 403.html error pages

Broken Announcements page (http://www.funderscommittee.org/announcements)

Google Analytics Findings

Broken Announcements page (http://www.funderscommittee.org/announcements)

Broken

Good Announcements page (http://www.funderscommittee.org/in_the_news/announcements)

Google Analytics Recommendations

• Fix broken links to reduce early exit from site

• Provide a direct link to the Announcements page from the home page and possibly other pages on the site

• Create "goals" in google analytics to track conversions (" thank you for registering”)

• Increase variety and breadth of keywords

Website Recommendations

• Expand information on homepage to engage new visitors and encourage increased interaction with site

• Provide a forum on the site to enable and encourage member engagement and collaboration

• Implement a social media strategy to increase word of mouth

Website Recommendations

• Homepage search function is not being used: consider eliminating or redesigning

• Reduce the size of rotating images on homepage to increase available real estate for other information

• Leverage available platforms (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn) to foster increased participation, connections and communication among members

Social Media StrategyRecommendations

• A strong social media program is critical to meeting the organization’s stated goal

• Key objectives– Expand membership– Increase membership participation and

engagement– Heighten awareness of FCCP– Augment website visitors

Social Media StrategyRecommendations

• Listen: discover and understand what people are saying about FCCP on the Web

• Talk: Spread message about FCCP’s passion to promote civic participation

• Amplify: Find key influencers within membership to spread FCCP’s message

Social Media ToolsRecommendations

• LinkedIn – set up as a professional group to include members, key organizations and media outlets

• Facebook – FCCP must come up with an alternative acronym

• Twitter – Much of the current content on the FCCP site could be easily Tweeted to raise awareness of causes FCCP supports

• All social media platforms should be easily accessed via website and members should be encouraged to subscribe

Conclusions

• Implement website strategies and tools to increase member engagement and collaboration

• Use social media to expand membership, increase membership participation and engagement, heighten awareness of FCCP and augment website visitors

• Ensure that website content is current and relevant