Website Relaunch for Nonprofit Organizations

A new website or the relaunch of an existing site often involves significant time and financial investment, but doesn't automatically guarantee satisfaction. Often, the opposite is true: new ideas haven't shown results yet, while tried-and-tested features have already been changed. Therefore, it's worthwhile to improve the website regularly and keep it up to date.

A website relaunch is like a puzzle, and I'm happy to support you with it. If a relaunch is actually necessary (usually after about 4 years), it's worth planning it carefully and integrating the website into your organization's overall strategy. External, independent guidance is often valuable for conception and preparation. While an agency is usually entrusted with the graphic and technical implementation, external expertise is often missing during planning – which can lead to unclear briefings and expectations.

Whether external consulting is helpful depends on the resources available within your organization. If there are sufficient time and professional resources, planning and tendering the project can also be done internally. Alternatively, some agencies take on the guidance, but this usually doesn't allow for real tendering and only works with an excellent agency-organization relationship. Therefore, I recommend bringing in external expertise before tendering to find the right agency for the right concept. I'm happy to advise you on this.

Every web project can be roughly divided into three phases:

1. Website Conception

The most exciting and probably most important part of a relaunch project is the conception. Here, the relevant people and departments of your organization come together to formulate clear goals – often in an externally moderated strategy workshop, which can also be a longer internal process depending on organization size. This results in the conception, which leads to a specification document for the technical tender, so agencies can submit concrete, comparable offers.

2. Website Implementation

Implementation is mainly done by the web agency, with your organization regularly approving intermediate steps and further refining the concept. Larger websites often need "shadow project management" within the organization to react to deviations in time. External consulting usually supports here through agency inquiries.

3. Website Rollout

Before go-live, the website is thoroughly tested: Does everything work as planned? Can users and search engines navigate the website without problems? Additionally, it must be checked whether the agency has fulfilled all requirements of the specification documents. After go-live, it's ensured that everything runs as expected and the site is being adopted. Independent expertise can help evaluate success not just based on external impression.

I support you individually in reconceptualizing your organization's website. Each project starts with a conversation where we determine the distribution of tasks and areas where you need reinforcement.