The design of the website follows the same philosophy as our entire communications program—it focuses on the grantees.

In the mid-1990s, as the Internet became more widely used among our constituents, we were faced with integrating electronic communications into what was primarily a print-driven communications program. Similar to many organizations’ first attempts at creating websites, our early website consisted of our publications that were posted to the site “as is.” We soon learned that writing for the Internet required a different mindset than writing for publications. People want to get to information quickly and easily navigate their way through the many documents we post. We are also mindful of people who do not have access to the Internet, and we take great pains not to post information that would give any applicant an “edge” over an organization without online access. At the same time, we recognize the potential for the website to provide information, such as evaluations and a comprehensive grants database, that is not practical to provide in print.

Our goal is for our print publications and our website to reinforce each other. This is accomplished on the one hand by using the website to post publications in a user-friendly format. On the other hand, we use our publications to advertise new features on our website. We have also found that we reach a wider audience and save money by mailing out postcards that direct people to our website for new online publications. Lastly, we allow people to sign up for electronic notification — we call them e-postcards — that will alert them to new publications on the website.

The design of the website itself follows the same philosophy as our entire communications program. We define our audiences and target our messages toward those audiences. But the website differs from our print publications in one way: it must be relevant for all of our audiences. With print publications, we can decide who is on each mailing list, but with the website we cannot control who visits and when. What we can do is direct different audiences to the information they need quickly. For example, we have a newsroom intended specifically for the news media. We also have a section titled “En Español” for Spanish-language news media. Potential grantees, on the other hand, can easily access information about grant programs and application instructions. Government and nonprofit leaders, as well as policymakers, can also find evaluations and lessons learned to help inform their decisions about best practices and model programs. We are also mindful of the digital divide and have a strict policy to post information during the same period when Foundation publications are scheduled to be delivered by mail. By directing our website visitors to the information they need, we are striving to engage them in our mission in ways that are relevant to their work.