NASCAR ads for a homepage?

It was a big NASCAR weekend in Richmond. I'm not a fan, but having lived here for quite a few years, I know plenty of fans. What has always bothered me is how busy the cars and the uniforms are - all those stickers, patches and endorsements by every type of company. It's hard to focus on any one thing at those rates of speed.

At NPA we often come across nonprofit homepages that suffer from "NASCAR syndrome." Every program and fundraising campaign have a sticker, patch or moving graphic on the homepage. Sometimes, it's even apparent that the homepage has been politically divided up with sections allocated to each division. At the rate of speed that most internet users scan a site, it's no wonder the homepage is often the top entry AND top exit page. There is nothing to focus on. There is no one clear call to action, so they hit the back button.

Having said that, I have noticed that most race fans don't identify cars by advertiser, even if the advertisers do. Fans are loyal to a driver…a person…a name... Not a team or a type of car or an advertiser. It’s a person. This is a valuable lesson for nonprofits. What do your website user’s identify with?

In the last two weeks, many nonprofits have been raising funds for Hurricane Katrina relief. Some have employed a technique referred to as a "hijacked homepage." They have eliminated all the clutter; stripped out extraneous links and concentrated the whole homepage on one single effort - raising money for the relief work.

This focus has netted HUGE results. More than half of the $500 million raised by the Red Cross has been raised online (as reported by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Sept 9, 2005).

It’s not practical or appropriate for a nonprofit's homepage to have this type of focus all the time. However, neither is the NASCAR advertising approach. The answer must lie somewhere in the middle - starting with the identification of the site's primary purpose.