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How to create a website for a campaign or a cause

Innovative Schools had an award-winning website that tells how this nonprofit partners with educators and communities in Delaware to reinvent public schools. Then, Innovative Schools launched a new initiative that needed a website of its own.

Hollister Creative worked with Innovative Schools to name the initiative, develop the branding and create MakeMineAModelSchool.org.

While the Innovative Schools website sells services, Make Mine A Model School has a different purpose: to enlist public support for a campaign. Over time, Innovative Schools plans to involve like-minded organizations as co-sponsors of the campaign and to offer campaign co-branding to the public schools that choose to become model schools. Those two objectives drove the decision to make the branding compatible with Innovative Schools but distinctively different.

A website for a campaign or cause needs to focus on engagement and action. When creating such a site:

  1. State boldly on the Home page what the campaign is for. Structure the navigation so that one click takes visitors to each of the pages where they can learn more and take action.
     
  2. Make your case on the About page. Quickly answer the most obvious visitor questions using simple, concrete language and only the most telling details. Close with a call to action.
     
  3. Provide multiple ways for visitors to take action immediately, for example: sign a pledge, subscribe to an email newsletter, read and comment on a blog, email a friend, attend a meeting, download information, volunteer, donate and connect through social media, such as Facebook and LinkedIn.