Image
  • Home
  • About
  • How it Works
    • FAQ
  • Pricing
  • Theme Options
  • Portfolio
  • Blog
  • Sign up/Contact
    • Request Personal Data

Archive for events

Content Should be “Forward-facing”

April 20th, 2015

calendarEffective websites keep their site content “forward-facing” – that is, any dated content should only be dealing with the present and the future.

Keeping past-dated content on your website makes it seem like you’re not keeping your website maintained, which conveys that you don’t have much interest about informing newcomers. Old, past-dated content just does not convey hospitality.

Certainly, if your church or ministry just won an award earlier this week, that’s present-tense news.  Put that up on your site! But in another couple of weeks, this information is old news, and should be taken down.

On church websites, the information on static (not changed very often) pages should be current. The days and times for regular group meetings or info for contact persons may be posted on these pages, but should be updated whenever there are changes – even if that means changing this information at the beginning of the summer (when groups might be taking a break), and then changing it back when the fall programs kick off again.

There are two exceptions to this:

The first is that you don’t need to take down any past dated information from a grid-style calendar on your site. Most of our ACWP participants use Google calendar. Leaving up your old events on Google calendar is fine because users will intuitively know that old events are already over.

The second exception is similar: you don’t need to take down old content is if you are using the blog function of your site as a newsfeed. Because these blog posts normally have a “posted on” date, they don’t convey the same inattention to hospitality that content on static pages can convey. The key however, is that you have to keep making new blog posts, so that your most recent news feed post is always within the last week or two.

The added benefit to leaving these “old-news” items up in these two locations is that the website user can scroll back through your news feed posts or calendar to see what your church has been up to in the recent past.

Categories Uncategorized
Comments (0)

Photo Permissions

March 9th, 2014

photo takingIdeally, we would get a written permission from every person whose photo appears on our website. Practically speaking however, most churches focus on getting the consent of parents and guardians for posting images of their children.

The easiest way to do this is to include a short notice or opt-in on registration forms for church school or youth groups in the fall. The language could be something like this: “Pictures of my child taken during church events may be used on the church website and/or social media.”  This will help you identify parents who may have reasons for not wanting images of their child to be used.  You may want to give parents the option to approve all-group images (a posed group photo of all the kids at a particular event, for example), even if they opt out of photos more generally.

When holding a public event,  you can post prominently in a public place near the entrance that photos or videos that are taken at the event may be used on websites, social media or advertising. Be sure you take photos of the notices to document that you have posted them.

You should have your own attorneys vet the statement you use, but here’s an example of the text that has been used:

“Upon entrance to [name of event], today, [day of week, month, day, year], you hereby give [name of hosting organization] and anyone authorized by such, the irrevocable right to use your name, picture, portrait, photograph and/or video clip in all forms of media, and in all manners, including composite or distorted representations, for advertising, trade, publicity, social networking or any other lawful purposes, without further notification or compensation. You waive any right to approve the finished product, including written copy that may be created in connection therewith. All video, raw footage, and photographs shall constitute [name of hosting organization]’s property, solely and completely.”

This may not solve completely the issue of folks who need to not have photos posted, but at least it goes a little way toward alerting folks that they may need to be vigilant.

How do you deal with photo permissions in your organization? We welcome your comments and stories!

Categories Uncategorized
Comments (0)

Event Registrations & RSVPs

March 5th, 2014

event registrationTaking registrations or RSVPs for an event? Let people give you their info online using the contact form on your website!

In WordPress, there are several contact form plug-ins that allow you to build an online form where people can send you an email without you having to expose your email address. Some of these plug-ins are free (for example, Contact Form 7) and some of them are paid (for example, Gravity Forms).

All of these plug-ins allow you to have more than one contact form on your website, and for you to build fairly complex forms that include things like checkboxes and radio buttons. Checkboxes allow you to choose more than one option; radio buttons require you to select only one option.

All of these contact form plug-ins will generate an email to you (or to any email address you designate–or multiple email addresses) with some or all of the information that is submitted by the user. All of these plug-ins can also be configured to save the submitted information in the database of your WordPress website. Gravity Forms does this natively, while Contact Form 7 and other free plug-ins require an additional helper plug-in for this capability. When information has been stored in your database, it can then be exported in a CSV file, which can be opened and edited in Excel.

This can greatly simplify the management of your registrations and RSVPs, even for fairly small events. The exported Excel file can quickly give you totals (for example, the number of vegetarian meals needed), and make it easy to email all of the registrants at once.

If you are in an ACWP participant, you may need to contact us to turn on access to Gravity Forms for you. We can train you in how to build forms and/or export data, or you may find that it is fairly low-cost to have us build forms for you.

Categories Uncategorized
Comments (0)

Cart

Recent Posts

  • SSL & Encryption Changes Will Affect Almost All Sites
  • Avoiding Image Copyright Issues
  • Let Your Theme Keep You Looking Good!
  • Get Google Apps for Nonprofits for Free

Topics

audio beginners blog columns comments communication content management Content Managment Systems design email events Facebook flyers forms Home Page images layout links meetings menu mobile news feed newsletters optimize pages PDF photos posts print newsletters registrations responsive rsvps scheduling SEO site content site speed social media terminology Twitter typography user experience video volunteers Wordpress WP theme
Affordable Church Website Program
Copyright © 2019 All Rights Reserved

Site built with Affordable Church Website Program
This site uses cookies: Find out more.