This presentation was put together by Rachel Toburen for WordCamp Denver 2015.
All images (except for slide 6, 10, 11, and 13) were photographed by Rachel Toburen for My Fairy Dawg Mother Rescue.
The notes in the slides are for explaining the majority of my talk.
Please use this in good faith, and in the spirit of which it was intended, and do not use the images for any purpose aside from the presentation here for your own personal purposes of learning and contributing to your community.
Rachel Toburen
Metasynchronic.com
Rachel.toburen@gmail.com
@metasynchronic
10. W W W . D O G R E S C U E C O L O R A D O . O R
G
F I R S T I S S U E - W E B S I T E
15. N E E D S
• SEO
• Forms &
Applications
• Continuous
Profiles
• Record
Keeping
• Community
• Blogging
• Donations
• VIP Area
20. D O T H E S E T H I N G S
• Listen
• Provide actionable communication
• Ask
• Observe
• Show Up
• Be willing to clean up poop*
• Check your ego at the door
21. D O N ’ T
D O T H E S E
T H I N G S
• Insist on your way
• Demand time or resources that
the organization doesn’t have
• Force the organization to
advertise for you
• Get involved with internal
conflicts
• Be too good for certain jobs
This presentation was put together by Rachel Toburen for WordCamp Denver 2015.
All images (except for slide 6, 10, 11, and 13) were photographed by Rachel Toburen for My Fairy Dawg Mother Rescue.
The notes in the slides are for explaining the majority of my talk.
Please use this in good faith, and in the spirit of which it was intended, and do not use the images for any purpose aside from the presentation here for your own personal purposes.
Rachel Toburen
Metasynchronic.com
Rachel.toburen@gmail.com
@metasynchronic
(this video clip has music, but it’s not necessary for enjoyment). Now I know this might be seen as cheating, for me to start with ten adorable pit bull puppies - but this is not the very beginning of how I helped save the dogs with WordPress.
Before (and after) I made this video, I helped out with the puppies by literally cleaning up the kennels. That means that I was cleaning up poop from 10 little pit bull puppies who were still learning about the world, and still learning how to properly digest food.
How many of you are bloggers? I mean, people who are here because you are specifically interested in WP as a blogging platform? How many of you are developers? What about social media people?
Any and all of these skills are needed by small volunteer-driven non-profit organizations. You, right now, have something that you really really care about - and there are small groups out there who really need you. This presentation is my story - and a way for you to start thinking about what you can do to help.
So, specifically to start with this story - I got involved with this dog rescue organization because I adopted my dawg from them.
Here he is, my tiny puppy, then and now. Because I love him so much, I wanted to see what the rescue needed to help make other dogs and people just as happy.
( but mostly because this is me when I see dogs.)
The rescue, it turns out, needed a million things, and most of these small organizations do to. The thing to understand about them is that they run on volunteer power, first, and they also have no budget.
The people who work with the rescue also typically have a day job elsewhere, and full lives. And the things they do for their day jobs are not the things I do for my day job. And some of the things they needed help with were as simple as coming by where the puppies were, and cleaning up poop.
Rescue staff also work in a sort of full-time crisis mode. So anything you can do to help them will often be seen as both very very helpful, but also can be polarizing. “Use Slack!” for example - can be met with “yes, this is a great idea but it will take 3 months to get everyone together to learn how to use it.”
So I put my efforts/knowledge into helping them the way I could, which would require less on the ground effort on their part.
Their old site was built by a guy in California. It wasn’t easy to update, and it wasn’t great looking (lots of comic sans) - but it worked. The rescue was consistently on the top of page one in google search results.
A rescue volunteer rebuilt the site on Wix, which you see here, to make it easier to keep local control - but thanks to the changes in links, SEO, site format, etc - their search ranking plummeted.
This is the screen shot from yesterday morning, searching by the primary keywords. The bottom of the page is just as good as not showing up at all.
For the dogs - a drop in search engine results = a severe drop in adoptions.
A drop in adoptions means a reduction in adoption fees.
A drop in visibility means a drop in donations
A drop in funding means having to spend time, energy, effort in critical fundraising mode, such as this go fund me (which is still up, by the way, and we definitely are accepting help.)
So here is how Wordpress comes into play, and what I have done (and I am still doing)
Wix cannot not do all these things.
WordPress can. So this is where I started for the rescue. The site is still in process, but here’s the thing: I am the research team for the rescue. When helping out, the best thing you can do is pull together the knowledge you have, and *listen* to the people you are helping. They know the results they want. They don’t know how to get them. They don’t have the time to do the work, the research, or the learning to make things happen the way you can.
These organizations do NOT have a budget for a web developer or designer. I have worked with a couple rescue groups, and sat on the committee for their web redesign projects - some with budgets up to $5000.
I’ve seen sites built on other “professional” CMS platforms, and they were horrible. Terrible. Confusing. If you have the skills of being able to blog, build websites, even consult on process improvements - you should definitely do this. These organizations need your help.
Because of the nature of WordPress, it is easier to create the site that will be easy for the rescue to maintain in terms of content, security updates, and so on. So that helps a bit on the commitment of the site. Plus, WordPress can downloaded, backed up, and uploaded to the next iteration of the site if needed, and control over the content and links helps maintain the SEO for the site. In addition to getting the site started on WP, I asked my hosting company if they donate space for non-profits - and they do! So there is $50 saved per year.
The challenge, of course, is still making a site great, getting to meet with the client and working with them on their schedule, and understanding that the results are critical , but the process is not top of mind, when you are a volunteer, donating a product, and they have no budget, and no understanding of what the ins and outs of design and development include. This doesn’t mean they are stupid, because by all means, they are not. They are just focused on the day to day stress of saving the dogs, raising funds, and keeping the organization’s head above water.
So, if you are going to help a rescue organization - these are the things that you should do:
Listen to them.
Provide actionable communication (I need X info by Tuesday at 4 pm) rather than “Send me some content”
Ask them about their priorities
Observe their team dynamic, and their focus/intent
Show up - there’s nothing worse than a volunteer who does not show up when they promise they will.
Be willing to clean up poop.
Check your ego at the door. Volunteer work is about the organization, not about you.
You might think that this is the best way to explore some new ideas - and sometimes it can be - but you cannot insist on your way of doing things. The rescue doesn’t have time to learn 1000 new ways of approaching things, or an entirely new branding structure all at once.
Don’t demand the time and resources that the organization doesn’t have.
Don’t make them put your logo on their front page. Ask about a sponsor link at the end of the project, but don’t do this because it’s a “good visibility” thing. Do it because you *want to help*
Don’t get involved with the organization’s politics and internal conflicts. You may become a great friend and ally of the organization - but in this project - treat them like a client, and stay out of the politics - because there will *always* be politics.
Don’t be too good for certain jobs. Sure, you might not be skilled at some things (accounting, for example) so you shouldn’t handle money matters, in that case. But don’t be too good to pick up poop. Sometimes, that’s exactly what they need.
So, this is, of course a super brief, kind of obvious overview, with all sorts of things you guys probably know. But it’s often a good reminder.
The best thing you can do for a non-profit organization is give with all your heart. And I hope you will give!
And of course, please consider going out and helping a group today!