Does the term ānonprofit website governanceā sound like something that requires a three-ring binder and a consensus-building retreat in the mountains? It doesnāt, of course. It just starts with a simple, slightly uncomfortable question: Who owns what?
Websites don’t get messy because people are careless. They get that way because no one clearly owns the individual pages. Good nonprofit website governance prevents that. By defining roles, you can make the ownership clear. In smaller nonprofits, one person may wear several of these hats. Possibly, all before lunch. Thatās completely fine. The goal is simply to make sure every hat is actually being worn.
Page Owners
Every page on your site should have a real human owner. Not a department, and not ācommunications.ā A person.
Thatās the person responsible for keeping the page accurate, up to date, and helpful to visitors. And āupdatedā doesnāt just mean adding more content. It also means removing things that are no longer helpful.
Owners may be distributed through the organization. For instance, program staff often make excellent page owners for their own program pages because they know the material best. The key is making the responsibility explicit.
It should also be clearly defined how often each page will be reviewed. Some pages may need quarterly check-ins, while others may only need an every-other-year review. What matters is that the cadence is named, not assumed. āWhen someone notices something wrongā is likely too lateā¦ and itās certainly not a governance plan.
Owner of the HomepageĀ
The homepage deserves specific mention, because it often invites internal wrangling. It feels like the front window of your organization, and sometimes everyone wants their priority in the window display. Thatās exactly why it needs a clearly defined owner with final authority.
But a homepage also needs clearly defined goals. What are the two or three most important things this page is meant to accomplish? A homepage can introduce your organization and guide visitors toward a few meaningful next steps. It canāt successfully promote everything.
When a homepage tries to serve every audience and highlight every initiative, it stops guiding and starts overwhelming.
CMS Support Lead
Someone needs to be the go-to person for your content management system, whether thatās Squarespace, WordPress, or something else.
This person may handle updates to the website directly, or they may simply support page owners with training and troubleshooting. Either way, make sure your page owners donāt feel like theyāre alone in a formatting wilderness trying to fix a headline that suddenly turned purple.
Guardian of the Writing Style
When multiple people contribute to a website, the tone can drift quickly. One page reads like a heartfelt letter, another sounds like a grant proposal, and a third feels like it was written during a very long meeting that should probably have been an email.
Your nonprofit website governance team should include someone who protects the overall voice of the site. That person reviews major updates, ensures writing aligns with your brand, and keeps the experience consistent, so visitors feel like theyāre interacting with one organization, not a rotating cast of authors.
Visual Style CuratorĀ
Consistency applies to visuals too. Someone should be paying attention to whether header styles match, images feel cohesive, and photos are high quality and properly licensed. If you decide that every program page includes a photo, someone needs to make sure those photos are thoughtful and appropriate, not random stock images.
Professional design builds trust quietly. Inconsistency chips away at it just as subtly.
Final Decision-Maker
Finally, someone needs authority over big-picture decisions. When does something earn a spot in the main navigation? Who resolves disagreements that cross roles?
This role typically belongs to the leadership sponsor of the website. Their job is to step in when competing priorities collide or a big structural question needs a real answer. Without that person, decisions tend to go to whatever was most urgent (or whoever cared more) that week.
Go Forth and Govern (Your Website)
When your nonprofit website governance team is defined, your site ages better. It stays clearer, more accurate, and easier to manage over time. Decision making and reviews become steady and predictable. And that steadiness is what keeps your site from slowly drifting off course while no one quite notices.
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Dive Deeper
Nonprofit Website Governance: A Practical Guide | Fatlab Web SupportĀ
A look at website governance from a somewhat different angle: how you know that you have too many cooks in the kitchen and not enough empowered decision makers, and what to do about it.Ā
3 Approaches to Non-Profit Digital Governance | 180 Idea Space
When organizations talk about governance in general, thereās three types that are frequently discussed: Centralized, Decentralized, and some strategic combo of the two. This article looks at how to apply that concept to websites.
Website Governance Plan Essentials: What You Need to Know | Palentir.net
Yet another somewhat different take, this one for bigger organizations, focused on website governing committees. (This is not the data-mining company, but rather a highly regarded Drupal website development firm that was founded well prior, with, unfortunately, a very similar name.)