Communicating the Cause: How NGOs Can Benefit from Having A Website
We have already discussed in the previous post on this topic as to how ‘communication’ is THE most important tool in promoting the cause(s) represented by any civil society group. This is nothing new and the UNDP’s Human Development Report 0f 1993 had also highlighted this fact by noting that, “People’s participation is becoming the central issue of our time.” Participation requires communication and that too in a two-way process. The telephone, invented as long back as the 1876, has been an excellent–though a cumbersome tool for solving this purpose. In fact systems such as the 0845 telephone number discussed previously have helped harness the telephone for companies and brands interested in setting up a toll free two-way exchange with their target audience. What is however new is the use of Internet as a means of communication which has now becomes an integrated part of our society.
Today, in the rapidly evolving communication industry, maintaining a website has become a necessary way for any brand or company to maintain and protect its identity online. There are several other benefits of having a website as well, the significant among them being that an interactive website is the fastest way of communicating with the target audience and gathering feedback. NGOs and civil society groups should also make efforts to use this medium as it can go a long way in ensuring greater outreach of their respective causes and also invite more and more people to help bring change. It can be said that steady communication brings and keeps people closer. We have already seen that how sharing information, photographs, profiles, events and parts of social life on networking website has done to the world.
Information dissemination is one of the most important element for ensuring the efficient growth of an economy. Having a websites could have many advantages for any civil society group that include but are not limited to publishing and distributing the civil society/ NGO mission and vision, generating awareness about respective pressing social and environmental issues, initiating signature campaigns, gathering contact information (email/mobile) of those interested in the respective causes and more importantly to bring together all the activities of individual NGOs at one particular place, aptly called he website ‘address’.
It must also be remembered that a website is an environment friendly way of carrying out the activities for any NGO. It reduces waste and improves efficiency even as suitably designed websites can completely eliminate the use of paper and travel to the greatest possible extent. So, if you are a socially and environmentally conscious civil society groups, it becomes unimaginable to think that you can continue to do your operations without maintaining a majority of your workflow online! And if you are still sitting offline, we encourage you to take those first steps and get yourself online. Help will always be a comment (below) or email away. Get clicking!!
Image by P Shanks via Flickr over Creative Commons
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