Creating a Web Magazine on Volountary Bases

WEB MAGAZINE

All of non profit professionals know that our Websites are easy doors of entry for potential supporters and donors. We also know that "just because you build it does mean that they will come."

A successful non profit professional in a communications function knows how to build publicity and awareness without paying a dime in advertising costs. There's no need to pay someone to get your Website out into the community.

We are creating a non-profitable web magazine which will be informative on several topics. The main consumers will be going on a range between 18 and 60 years old. With such a target group, our mostly psychology based magazine is gong to talk about all the informative and reliable everyday topics.

We should know how to build our publicity to gain, in the next future, sponsors to keep us alive…

Q1)

In order to attract volunteers to our non-profit organization we want to make a list of all of the volunteer roles we would like to fill. Having a clear job description for existing and new volunteers will give them a sense of clarity and passion for our groups work.

Facebook could be used, myspace, and other social networking sites to share how much fun our non-profit is having while making a difference. We can also start a group and invite all of your friends and family to get updated about what is happening. Use our organizations website to gather email addresses and send at least a monthly update on great things you did, things to be excited about, and a link in the homepage and on just about every other page that attracts them to becoming a volunteer. Use assertive text like "VOLUNTEER NOW, or GET INVOLVED AND HELP CHANGE LIVES TODAY".

Since most nonprofits don't have a huge advertising budget, those ways are cheap and even free ways to spread the word in the most appropriate places. Take advantage of Public Service Announcements on radio stations; let newspapers know when a volunteer has done something great.

This is going to be our identity to all of our potential clients. We can look at what other web magazine businesses are using to get ideas, but make our logo uniquely ours. Once we have your company name, logo, and slogan, we should immediately have business cards printed.

"The heart of a magazine is its writers, come and help us help you inform clearly the world. Be a part of information"

The message as the company name should be understandable the moment it is written, to have an immediate feedback because it will help this website to know if the message is passing through. The ad should attract mostly people between 20 and 35 years old so it must be a message reliable to them. It should encourage them. We have to take in consideration characteristic of our message and of our environment because they are factors that affect the reader's perception.

For the logo, I believe it should be centred to show its importance. The centre is considered the first thing the eye looks at if it is putted there on the first plan.

The logo should contain mostly yellow which evokes the optimism of the company and can stimulate the viewer, the colour white which sense the purification of thoughts and express the psychology this web magazine have, and finally a bit of black for the mystery and stimulate the curiousness of the future readers.

The font should be in a natural green to rest the eyes. Green is considered a tranquilizing colour so it should work.

Q2)

A Website design is not a one time activity. Almost all websites alter their layouts to give it a new and better look. Also with advancement in technology, underlying code also changes accordingly, adding new possibilities of providing a better layout.

A simple website layout is user friendly. We do not have to create a complex navigational links using complex scripts or images that may not be viewable correctly in different browsers. Also engines cannot index the site properly if complex navigation is involved. We must minimize the use of bulky images which take long to load. We will use smaller icons to attract visitor's attention instead.

One important aspect of layout is keeping track of dimensions of a web page. Most successful commercial websites limit the width and height of the webpage so that the important content of the webpage lies within the top 600x600 viewable area without scrolling. The best choice is to limit the width by placing a table with a