Actually, I think I misread something in Allan’s post – I wasn’t taking it from my own (faulty) knowledge.

Volunteer tracking is something that I haven’t been well connected to, so the status of VolunteerMatch was something that I hadn’t been aware of.

Sorry for the mistake, and thanks for the correction!

I just wanted to correct one thing. To Michelle’s comment above, VolunteerMatch is and has always been 501(c)3. Not sure where she got the idea from that we were anything but nonprofit, and it’s surprising as she is a nonprofit consultant!

Thanks,
Robert
Director, Communications
VolunteerMatch (.org!)

Any of you web marketers aspiring for greatness should be heartened by caringbridge.org’s pure Web play.

Thanks so much for the shout out to CaringBridge.org! Great questions, too. We’re ten years old, and for the bulk of that time, you’re right — our growth has been mostly word of mouth, friend-to-friend, organic growth. How and why?

I think it’s the power of what we call “The CaringBridge Experience.” It was and is really focused/specific “social networking” (which we were doing before it had a name, I think) — connecting friends and family to share info, love and support when someone is facing a serious health situation — cancer treatment, premature birth, transplant, accident, war injury, etc.

That organic growth has been pretty explosive, which is why we’re on your list. People are so moved by that experience — by those connections, by that hope and healing that their “community” of friends and family experience — that they spread the word. A lot.

Today, of course, we’re doing a lot more proactive outreach! Anyway, would love to answer anything specific you’re wondering about. Thanks again for the love for CaringBridge.org!

Obviously, it wasn’t because it wasn’t so they could get on my Top 25 list. It’s because they could perform their mission BETTER (in whatever way these folks have determined). And that’s the thread that unites all these sites and THAT’S why it’s not an apples to oranges comparison. Nonprofits cannot truly consider themselves to be accomplishing their mission unless there is a significant Web component to their activity and one of the ways to measure that is with web site traffic statistics.

I still don’t understand your need to contextualize web site stats. Can’t we just trust people to do the contextualizing for themselves? I don’t see the point in distrusting users. I mean, isn’t this what Web 2.0 is all about? Let the users decide. It’s not for nonprofits to make the decision for them.

I know we still don’t agree on this and I know I have the minority view. However, my guess is that my view will eventually win out over time as the Web takes a larger and larger presence in people’s lives. (And I know plenty of people who aren’t talking who intuitively understand that open web site stats go hand-in-hand with transparency).

I never, ever suggested nonprofits should actively try to hide their web stats. And certainly, people will make of web stats whatever they want to. People make of all sorts of data and information whatever they want to, and that is beyond our control. But I do think that they do have to be contextualized. To compare monthly visits of Wikipedia, whose *sole* mission is the dissemination of information via the web, with the Red Cross whose mission is so much more on the ground and hands on, is not, IMHO up to your usual intellectual prowess. It doesn’t make sense. It’s apples to oranges.

Why the Red Cross decided, like many nonprofits, to spend time and resources on their web presence is probably an interesting story, and one you should ask them about. It probably had a lot to do with trying to shift to online donations, decrease direct mail, get their word out in this new medium. Maybe it was just because a bunch of nonprofit technology types told them they should. But I sincerely doubt it was so they could make the top 25 list.

What I object to the most is the whittling down of an incredibly complex set of issues relating to the relationship between organizations mission and web communications strategy, and what success at being an online presence looks like, to a simple number, and a ranking on a list.