Website renewal

The development of the new website was frozen in the winter of 2005/2006, because a project of that magnitude proved impossible to manage using nothing but volunteers and free software. Website renewal was picked up again using a combination of the same volunteers, but with the support of a professional website builder - www.bestebroer.com. This web design agency provides its services at a significant markdown.

The new website went live in September. The team of volunteers continued to play a key role in concept development, graphic design, information architecture and interactive design. But because the actual website building took place within a single production team, delivery proceeded without any significant problems. This is compliment to the web team, and confirmation that the prior website design concept was solid, but that implementation asked too much of independently working parties.

The key characteristics of the new website are:

  1. Tailored to the three key Net4kids target groups: businesses, private individuals and schools.
  2. Increased user friendliness.
  3. Greater action orientation (lead to a donation more quickly).
  4. Online payment options.
  5. Entirely bilingual (Dutch and English).
  6. Easy maintenance, i.e. various volunteers can keep their 'own' sections of the site up to date: projects, public relations, marketing, etc.
The development of phase 2 occurred in parallel to the building of the new site – the development of a personalised environment for donors. This is an extension of the current 'minisites', Net4kids websites for major sponsors, where they can find information about the projects they sponsor, including progress reports. The personalised 'MyNet4kids' environment currently preparing for launch will make this possible for all Net4kids donors. The actual building of this new section will start early 2008 and will be financed by the Transparency Award prize money, as mentioned above.