# iConcertina’s Charity Website Benchmark Report 2006 Released

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/07/05/iconcertina039s-charity-website-benchmark-report-2006-released/
- Published: 2006-07-05T16:16:56+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Very few charities have a blog, even though this would be [an ideal way for these organisations to improve communications with their stakeholders](https://info.whitehat-seo.co.uk/blogging-for-charity-nonprofits).
Blogs are easy to use, simple to manage and cheap to run, so it is surprising that
they are not more popular within the charity sector.

 

In fact, we at [iConcertina](http://www.iconcertina.com) were so surprised at this
revelation that our in-house discussion about charity blogs became a 3-month project.
And one that has produced a fully-documented and publicly-available benchmark of
the websites of the UK’s top 110 charities.

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Our benchmark shows how well charities engage online with donors, volunteers and
other stakeholders, and reveals whether the online medium adds value or insight 
to their proposition.

 

The fact that a charity has a website at all is a good start, but what value does
it add to the organisation’s communications mix? To make our assessment, we used
the following benchmark criteria:

 

· **Usability** – is the site easy to use?

 

· **Accessibility** – can everyone access the site?

 

· **Communication** – can users find what they need?

 

· **Transparency** – is the charity open with its information?

 

· **Responsiveness** – are donations, legacies and volunteers encouraged?

 

· **Integration** – does the site support, and work in harmony with, the charity’s
off-site and off-line communications?

 

· **Housekeeping** – does the charity own its domain, and put search engine optimisation(
[SEO](https://www.whitehat-seo.co.uk/)) into practice?

 

**The results:**

 

The results are most surprising – and disappointing. Relatively few charities rise
to the challenge of being transparent, and accessibility and communication are sadly
below average. Most charities are only average at usability.

 

**The Benchmark also reveals**:

 

There are no blogs. Even the few charities with a blog achieve this rating – their
blogs were simply too hard to find.

 

Not a single site has full points for accessibility. No sites are error-free.

 

Only 50% of the sites provide a last updated” date. Users will not bother to return
if they don’t think anything new has been added since their last visit.

 

25% of the home pages do not say what the charity does. The charities should not
assume it is clear what they do.

 

And many other shocking revelations…

 

**What to do next**:

 

To find out how your organisation matches up to the charity benchmark, and to discover
how we can help you score higher next time, email Mi******@*********na.com now or
call her on +44 (0)20 7269 7919.

 * **[A weekend of high fever raises money for the Royal Hospital](https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/07/06/weekend-high-fever-raises-money-royal-hospital/)**(
   6 July 2006)
 * **[GuideStar UK responds to feedback about financial information](https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/07/10/guidestar-uk-responds-feedback-about-financial-information/)**(
   10 July 2006)
 * **[Reading based BG Group raises over £200,000 for charity](https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/07/10/reading-based-bg-group-raises-over-200000-charity/)**(
   10 July 2006)

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