Improved website quickly pays off
Donor’s search leads to AIDS Coalition gift
Stacie Lechot just discovered the web is the new Yellow Pages.
About a week after getting a new, improved website for the nonprofit group North Idaho AIDS Coalition, a caller found her online and left a message saying he wanted to donate $5,000.
“It wouldn’t have happened if we still had our old website,” said Lechot, executive director of NIAC, the only North Idaho agency devoted to advocacy and support for HIV patients and their families.
The benefactor was the New York-based group Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Its executive director, Tom Viola, wanted to donate the money in honor of a well-respected volunteer from Idaho who now works as a stage manager in New York City.
Viola said he started searching for any groups that came up with the keywords Idaho and “AIDS services.”
The top result was the Coeur d’Alene-based NIAC, which has been around since 1989 and relies on government grants, contracts and charitable contributions. A few weeks earlier, and before a Spokane design team completed the redesign, that search would not have found it, Lechot said.
Viola left a phone message telling NIAC he wanted to send them the money. Lechot said she was sure there was a catch. “I thought it had to be connected to some kind of ad,” she said.
Viola called again and made clear there were no strings. Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS was sending the group a check, he said.
“When I got that message, we all did our happy dance around here,” Lechot said.
She said she and others had been pushing to change the website over the past few years. It was dated and limited in giving visitors quick access to resources and services, including its free HIV tests. Last year NIAC provided 50 free tests, Lechot said.
After getting approval, Lechot contacted a handful of area web design firms. She saw an ad from Spokane’s 2X Sales Results Group and asked for a bid. She hired the company after getting a quick reply and a detailed proposal.
Jerry Thrasher, the owner of 2X Sales, redesigned the site to help search engines find the nonprofit more easily. “Before, the only way you would have found (NIAC) was if you typed in their full name,” Thrasher said.
He used a number of search engine optimization steps that are common for businesses and nonprofits, including building the site in the Wordpress platform.
The money from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS doesn’t have to be used on any specific program. Lechot said it will go into the group’s roughly $130,000 annual fund and will be used for operations.