One of the greatest challenges for many small and medium organizations is a truly functional website for the long-term. Originally websites were simply online company brochures but the trend is for websites to be extensions of the organization.
For many small and medium sized organizations, stepping into the Information Age begins with effectively integrating their operation with their website. Today’s website systems need to integrate personal email, newsletters, marketing email, on-line forms, and donations. Today’s websites need to consider search engine optimization, graphic design, flash, animated gifs, and news feeds. Today’s systems should also leverage information exchange (including collaborative systems) which could include referrals and case management.
The challenge is professionalism, functionality, and cost for both set-up and the long term. We worked with several organizations and in 2005, we began a program to bundle professional design, a quality website management system, low cost long-term support and services, plus seamless information exchange and collaborative systems.
We have worked to expand and improve this offering each year. Currently the package includes 40 hours of design at no cost, a website system for $35 per month, training, and on-going services at $10 per hour. The objective is to make it affordable for organizations to have a professional website system, save money maintaining it themselves, keep their websites current, and have professionals on call at a price every organization should be able to afford.
In 2008 the program was introduced on a large scale with Emergency Response Network (link to the We Provide page) which included over 2,000 organizations. Our plan is to expand this program every year.
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