{"id":597,"date":"2010-07-16T08:54:17","date_gmt":"2010-07-16T14:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/?p=597"},"modified":"2010-07-16T08:55:39","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T14:55:39","slug":"my-experience-implementing-gwo-for-a-non-profit-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/archives\/597","title":{"rendered":"My experience implementing GWO for a non profit, part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, I went to the most recent BDNT<\/a> and saw a number of non profits present.\u00a0 It was very interesting to see the vast range of needs and technical experience across the twelve non profits who actually presented.\u00a0 Everything from a small webapp project to any web presence at all to updating a custom php webapp.<\/p>\n

Most did a good job of containing their request to something manageable, though one group did get asked “Do you need a super volunteer or an employee” by Andrew Hyde<\/a>, I assume because their needs seemed so vast.\u00a0 The answer: no employee would be hired :).<\/p>\n

After pizza (thanks BDNT sponsors!<\/a> ) I wandered up to the group that had piqued my interest the most.\u00a0 The WILD Foundation<\/a> had an employee (Emily) whose job responsiblities included social media, a blog, and actively engaging the online community.\u00a0 This strategy had worked wonders for the foundation’s web traffic, but for online donations?\u00a0 Not so much.\u00a0 This was the challenge she asked us to attack.<\/p>\n

The session was moderated by Derek Scruggs<\/a> and there were lots of great ideas.\u00a0 To paraphrase, you could see where someone sat by what actions they suggested.\u00a0 I mentioned Google Website Optimizer (a tool I’ve been a fan of for a long time<\/a>); marketing folks wanted to focus on the message; some people wanted to change button color.\u00a0 There were about 10 suggestions at the end.\u00a0 Derek and Emily and the group then ranked them by effort (mostly group input) and priority (mostly Emily input).\u00a0 Then we assigned tasks to volunteers.<\/p>\n

I volunteered to set up a GWO test for the donate button on the WILD.org homepage.\u00a0 We’re going to vary images and text to see if we can drive greater click through to the donate page.\u00a0 Eventually, it’d be nice to optimize the whole process, but the actual donation page and donation thank you page are hosted on a vendor’s server, so I’m not sure whether we’ll be able to.<\/p>\n

It’s been a week or so, and I still haven’t gotten write access to the template so I can add the code.\u00a0 There are a number of reasons, and I think they might be common to all technical volunteer efforts, so I thought I’d outline them.<\/p>\n