Leap the Nonprofit Discoverability Gap

Organizations create departments because work must be managed. Websites copy those departments because information must be organized.

The result is a website navigation design that makes perfect sense to employees and very little sense to everyone else.

Internal structure becomes public navigation

A nonprofit may divide its work into Community Advancement, Member Services, Strategic Initiatives, and Regional Engagement. These categories may correspond to budgets, leaders, or grants.

A visitor does not know where to look for help starting a business, applying to an art fair, or volunteering on Saturday.

The website asks the public to understand the institution before accessing the mission. That is backward.

Use the public’s categories for navigation design

Visitors organize information around their own circumstances:

• I need financing.
• I am looking for a class.
• I want to volunteer.
• I need a certified supplier.
• I want to exhibit my work.
• My family needs help.
• I am planning a weekend visit.

These are not departments; they are recognizable points of entry.

A discoverable website can preserve internal structure behind the scenes while presenting information according to public needs.

One program may belong in several paths

Internal-facing navigation assumes every item belongs in one place.

Public needs are less orderly.

A youth art program might belong under education, family activities, summer programs, community events, and financial assistance if scholarships are available.

The page does not need to be duplicated. It needs to be reachable from several relevant contexts.

This is the difference between storing information and helping people find it.

Labels should predict what comes next

Navigation labels often become vague because they must contain too much:

• Explore
• Connect
• Impact
• Initiatives
• Resources
• Opportunities

These words are attractive but imprecise.

A useful label helps the visitor predict what will happen after clicking.

• “Find an Artist” is clearer than “Explore.”
• “Business Financing” is clearer than “Resources.”
• “Volunteer Opportunities” is clearer than “Get Involved.”

Clarity is considerate mission discoverability.

The organization can still tell its story

Designing around public needs does not mean abandoning the nonprofit’s history, mission, leadership, or strategy. Those subjects remain important, especially to donors, funders, partners, and prospective employees.

They simply should not become tollbooths through which every visitor must pass.

People can enter through a specific need and gradually discover the larger organization behind the answer.

In many cases, usefulness is the most persuasive introduction to the brand.

A better organizing question

Do not ask only: Where does this belong on our website?

Ask: From which needs should someone be able to reach it?

That question produces a more connected, humane information system.

The org chart helps the nonprofit perform the work. It should not determine whether the public can find it.

Key Take Aways

Chapter 16 of Leap The Nonprofit Discoverability Gap argues that website navigation design should prioritize how the public searches rather than reflecting the organization’s internal structure. Key takeaways include:

• Public vs. Internal Logic: Internal structures (like departments or funding sources) often make sense to staff but confuse the public. Organizations should adopt the vocabulary the public uses to describe their needs.
• Flexible Categorization: A single program or service might need to be discoverable through multiple different paths because different users will search for it using different terms.
• Predictive Labeling: Navigation labels should clearly communicate what a user will find before they click, rather than forcing them to guess.
• Stories vs. Navigation: An organization can still tell its story effectively without making its internal org chart the primary way for visitors to navigate the site.
• Better Organizing Questions: Instead of asking where a program fits in the org chart, organizations should ask how the public would naturally group these services based on their own experiences.