Welcome to the board! Serving on the board is an exciting, and sometimes challenging, way to make a difference in your organization. You have probably received a binder or notes from the previous board member, a stack of old agendas and monthly income reports, perhaps a printout of old email exchanges that detail decisions made, copies of vendor receipts and hopefully, a plan for the coming year. Suffice it to say, you are awash in information! So why pile on one more piece? Because these three reports will give you the birds-eye view you need to kick off the year.
You may be thinking, “But my position has nothing to do with the website. We have a board member who has the title Website Guru. She takes care of all that.” And many boards have appointed someone to be in charge of the website. Some organizations even have a dedicated webmaster, either paid or volunteer, that manages the site. But your website is chock full of tools that help in all areas of association management. Here’s where to look.
1. Invoice Reports
Reviewing these reports will show you (1) how much money you are bringing in through your website and (2) which modules are being used to generate revenue.
Your site’s primary functions are communication, administrative efficiency and revenue generation. At the most basic level, you should see dollars generated by Memberships (new members and renewals) and Event registrations. Many organizations have told us their Job Bank is more than covering the cost of their website. Are you charging companies to post openings to your Job Bank? It’s both a member benefit and a revenue source! Same with Business Directories. Cause-related organizations should also verify they are set up to accept online Donations.
2. Event Logs Summary
Pull up your Event Logs Summary to get a visual overview of your website activity. This summary, only found within Tendenci, shows color-coded activity on your site in a timeline format.
As your primary form of communication, you want to know how members are using your site. What days of the week are most active? How much traffic do you get prior to and following an event? Are members returning to the site after a newsletter goes out to read your articles or view photos? Do newsletters or photos increase event registrations? Use this data to understand your members and how to provide the right information at the right time.
3. User Activity Summary
This report will tell you who are the most active users on your website.
If you are analyzing your site for its effectiveness, these are the people to talk to. What are they adding to the site? What do they find useful? What’s missing? What recommendations do they have for improvement? In effect, where should you put your focus? Your site reaches more people, companies, foundations and organizations that any mailer or phone call could. You need to know if it is working for you.
Overall, do not be intimidated by your website. All board members should be able to use this tool to help accomplish their goals for the organization. Whether you are in charge of memberships or events or publicity or finance or newsletters, you can use the data on your site to make you more efficient.
If you aren’t making use of these features to increase communication and revenue, ask your Website Guru “why not?” Or call us today and we can show you how easy it is to make your site work for you!
