My name is Wynn Hollis and I am a senior majoring in Human Services & Social Justice, minoring in Public Health and Psychology. In our class I am part of Team 3, “the PR team” that is responsible for the communication aspect of our foundation Students for Students. We devised a campaign strategy to raise awareness of and advertise our grant opportunity. We largely coordinated this through the use of social media, like Facebook and LinkedIn, a website, and email and print communications.
Personally, my studies did not expose me much to communication strategies or advertising, so this has been a learning process. I created and designed our website through researching different platforms and decided on Wix because of its simplicity, eye-catching design, and ability to convey all of our information in an interactive and interesting manner. I initially researched to understand the key differences between websites for nonprofits and foundations, such as in the use of pictures and personal stories on nonprofit websites that our foundation did not have yet. I was able to understand that because we are a small and new foundation, our website wouldn’t be able to exactly mimic the designs of well-known and large foundations. However, I used these websites as inspiration as well as a way to find the key information we needed to display. At a certain point I became a bit overwhelmed doing so much research before starting the design, and I decided it would be best to just dive in to the process. It was quite overwhelming at first to grasp the way Wix worked and all of the different features that were able to be changed, and it involved a lot of decision-making. Among family and friends I am notoriously indecisive, so this was a huge learning experience for me to make many decisions about the features and look of the website all at once. Receiving constructive criticisms from our class about these decisions was not always easy, but allowed for me to gain a new perspective and for the site to grow and develop into its current design. I found the process of just “diving in” to creating the website to be beneficial because I wanted our website to showcase the unique creation story of our foundation and highlight our mission. This was a balancing act and through my own trial and error as well as feedback from our professor and classmates, the website was slowly perfected. Although I was hesitant about my technological capabilities, with more practice and research I was able to create a website that I am proud to share with potential grant applicants.
When browsing the different potential “looks” for our website, I found myself most attracted to simple designs. Knowing that our foundation has just begun, I felt it was most important to convey the relevant information on our origin, our mission/vision, objectives, and grant information in a concise yet still interesting manner. This meant striking a balance between providing just the right amount of information to organizations without being confusing or wordy, while at the same time having a professional yet personable design. I wanted to create a feel for the site that was approachable, yet still polished, since we are students and are passionate about our mission and vision. I attempted to achieve this through the use of personal pictures, designing a simple logo, and using a brighter color scheme. I also wanted to ensure the website was easy to navigate and read. Understanding that it could be a deterrent to potential grant seeking organizations to have to dig for relevant information, easy navigation was my primary concern. The class also needed an informational flyer to email out to DMV non-profits. So I created this using same color scheme and general theme as the website for consistency and I believe this small detail supports our credibility and professional appearance. Working to advertise the website in our email signature, on Facebook and LinkedIn have also been significant and ongoing steps to ensure questions are being answered. I also have learned that updating the website frequently is important - just this week we created an “FAQ” page designed from the questions organizations have emailed to us. Some questions we had not anticipated, such as which specific programs are able and unable to be funded through our grant, prompted the creation of the FAQ section. We also decided to include other general questions, such as when organizations will hear back from us about the grant, even though they are included in other areas of the website, to make them easily accessible to organizations. Being able to quickly adapt to these new questions and ideas as they arose is also a key skill I have refined through this experience.
My knowledge and experience has grown tremendously over this semester being part of the “PR team”, and it is for this reason that I volunteered for the team initially. I am excited to have gained this knowledge and increased my comfort level with these previous unfamiliar areas, especially in technology. Overall, this process has been incredibly exciting to be a part of, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to have a new experience in this field both in the way of communications and foundations. I am looking forward to continuing this process as well as seeing the work of Team 4!
--Wynn
Responses from our class
Thanks for your post! I really appreciated your insightful reflection about the process of creating and managing the website and social media platforms. I figured it would be difficult for whoever took over that responsibility, and it definitely seemed like it was challenging for you but you handled it so well and everything looks so professional and put together! Especially knowing you did not have previous experience with building a website, you really went all out and made it look fantastic! I also think including the FAQ page was a great idea especially considering the question we received from a potential grantee about their ability to apply. I'm glad you have found your position within team 3 to be rewarding and beneficial in terms of developing marketable skills for yourself. I wonder if other people in different universities utilize other methods of social media engagement and if the structure of their class is the same as ours. I'm sure other classes are structured to teach a variety of skills, but it would be interesting to see if there was a specific social media focus on one. Just wondering about it. Once again, amazing job on all your and Team 3's work this semester, I am so grateful for your contribution.
--Tanya
First, I want to commend your team for doing such a wonderful job with the PR for our foundation. I feel as though it has been one of the smoothest aspects of our work, and that is undoubtedly due to your hard work. I am also someone who is attracted to simple designs, as I feel like it lets the content of the website shine. I think a really important addition to our website was the team photos that we took later in the semester, as it added a level of personalization to our viewers. One of my favorite parts of your PR plan was the LinkedIn page. I was able to add my position on Team 4 to my personal LinkedIn page under volunteer experience, and reference it during upcoming job interviews. I even had a friend notice my new position on my page, and ask me about our work as Students for Students.
Lots to be proud of!
--Elena
Thank you for providing such a detailed account of how our team designed the foundation’s website. Your post mentioned that foundations use a combination of personal stories and pictures on their sites, which reminded me of a service project I conducted in a previous role within the Human Services and Social Justice program. The staff at a national think tank asked me to evaluate the scope of their social media engagement, identifying areas of potential growth for our outreach efforts. In conducting this research, I discovered a three-stage model to describe how the social media presence of an issue-based organization ideally evolves. The theory by Chao Guo and Gregory Saxton (2014) outlined the following progression: (1) reaching out to people; (2) keeping the flame alive; and (3) stepping up to action.[i] In essence, an organization first posts thought-provoking content to build interest among a potential audience, and then, it solicits comments to engage them in the ongoing work of a campaign. Finally, the organization leverages the base they attracted via interactive content to call them to action. In my volunteer role, I suggested to my organization that we already completed phase 1 and needed to transition to phase 2, asking thoughtful questions about our issue area to provoke a response and keep our followers interested until our next call to action.
Your post mentioned that we likely lack the bandwidth to mimic larger and well-established foundations’ media presence. However, I am curious if we can use our social media as a tool to gather personal testimonials and photos related to our mission. Although foundations and advocacy organizations differ in significant ways, I wonder if Guo and Saxton’s framework (2014) would transfer to greater engagement for our website. Now that Team 3 has distributed our request for proposals and our Facebook page boasts 35+ followers, I wonder if there is a way we could converse with our audience while reminding them about the grant application deadline. For instance, I had in mind a post that read, “Did immigration make a difference in your family’s history? Share your story and encourage an organization to apply for our grant to uplift immigrant communities!” By soliciting immigration stories, we draw a viewer’s attention through a common point of connection, and continue to advance our objective of reminding them to recommend organizations for the grant. As you mentioned in your post, our website design must be responsive to our audience, and with this type of social media engagement, we possess an opportunity to incorporate our audience’s narratives into our website or into future reminders about the application due date. Finally, once we have an engaged base of followers, our consistent and responsive web and social media presence would allow us call them to “step up to action.” Perhaps, a foundation that exists in perpetuity likely utilizes a similar social media progression as a way to engage donors and garner necessary funds for annual grants.
[i] Guo, C., & Saxton, G. (2014). Tweeting Social Change: How Social Media Are Changing Nonprofit Advocacy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43(1), 57–79.
--Adam