When designing or redesigning a nonprofit site, there are a lot of things to keep in mind, and a huge proportion of effort (somewhat rightfully) goes into designing the top half of the homepage. After all, this is what people will see first. It contains your logo, your main menu of options, and hopefully, a call to action like a donation button. But as important as these things are, don’t lose sight of the footer, the area at the bottom of the page, because this area is hugely important to your site’s success.
The Bare Minimum
A footer is, in 90% of cases, nothing but a short horizontal list of a few important links. Different organizations have different philosophies about where to put certain links, but there are a few that should always be in your footer. If you don’t have a Privacy Policy page, make one now and make sure that a link to that page is in the footer of every page on your site. Not only is it something that users and online donors have come to expect, but not having a privacy policy page can get your site penalized by Google and other search engines. Another thing that should always be in your footer is a simple copyright, like “© 2009 CharityGeek”
Choose These Links for a Reason
Too often, we in the web business tend to copy practices from other sites rather than make informed decisions of our own, and the choice of footer links often falls into this category. Aside from the copyright and privacy policy link, there is no “required” footer content, and it’s up to you what to put there. So what makes a link appropriate for the footer? It should be something that you want the user to be able to find, but not the path you ideally want the majority of users to take. For example, if your organization builds wells for African villages, you want users that come to your site to learn about the problem of unclean water, learn what you are doing about it, and how they can help. These are the paths you ideally want them to take, and they should be clearly shown on the top of the page. But, if they want to learn more about your organization in order to feel more comfortable working with you or donating to your cause, they will look around the page for this information. The footer ensures that they can find that information if they look, but that it’s not so obvious that it distracts from your primary goals.
Get Creative
For search engines and basic usability, a basic set of footer links is perfectly fine. But, some sites have chosen to get a little more creative, and it’s worth a look at what they have done with their footers. Here are a few that stick out to me as interesting in terms of design:
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
This footer is simple in terms of links, but tells visitors about the source of funding for the site, as well as having an attractive tagline as a cap to a nice overall site design.
National Urban League
The footer can be a second place to put your logo to reinforce your brand, and the NUL uses it like a business card, with contact information right there and then a series of links to the right.
Bailey House
This footer does a nice job of separating into two different sections – one for navigation (Home, Contact Us, etc) and one for privacy and legal data. Also, the addition of the Facebook link is one that more nonprofits should consider as a final chance to get the user involved in their social networks.
Best Friends Animal Society
Speaking of social networks, this footer puts the spotlight squarely on that aspect, with links to all of their pages on the major social sites.
CancerCare
CancerCare throws the kitchen sink at their footer, with social network links, site search, and contact information. It takes up a lot of real estate on the page, but it gives users that get there virtually every option they might want.
