The 5 Elements of a Great Community Involvement Web Page

Financial institutions do amazing things in their communities. At Kadince, we’ve seen hundreds of impactful initiatives from our customers and other institutions. However, many institutions struggle to market their initiatives to their communities. To supplement word-of-mouth and other marketing initiatives, it's vital to have an effective community involvement webpage on your site. Your community involvement webpage can help you gather more requests and volunteers, and help you show the impact you're having in your community. Here are 5 elements that can help you develop an effective community involvement webpage.

 

Stock photos can be a great way to get low-cost, high-quality photos for your general website pages, but the same should not be said for your community involvement page. Like an “About Us” page, this page should be filled with real photos of your team and the initiatives you're participating in.

In the example above, York Traditions Bank is highlighting Jessica’s story in their “Shine a Light on Strong Women” initiative. York implemented a real picture of Jessica instead of a stock photo because it helps the reader connect to the story. If you do the same, your webpage visitors will connect with your cause and literally see the impact you are making. Check out York Traditions Bank’s community web page here.

 

Unfortunately, many institutions will pick great pictures but only write mediocre copy. Powerful copy should follow a powerful image. Once you've led a reader through the door with your original photos, powerful copy will make them want to stick around. The best framework I’ve found for storytelling is the “problem, solution, outcome” framework. The problem is the obstacle(s) your beneficiaries are facing. The solution is your program/initiative. The outcome is how the beneficiary’s life will be different because of your solution.

Problem: Little Susie is in shoes that are hand-me-downs, too small, and have holes in the soles. Susie has worn these shoes for almost a year. 

Solution: Our bank’s initiative, Shoes for Kids, provided Susie and her friends with a new pair of shoes.

Outcome: Now Susie’s feet won’t hurt when she walks to school and when she plays during recess. 

The more specific you can be, the better. By writing about a specific beneficiary (Susie), the specific problems the beneficiary faced, and the specific outcomes after your involvement, you'll reach more hearts and inspire more community involvement. 

 

 

 

It can be hard to properly demonstrate to your community the impact you're making. Pictures and in-depth stories are crucial to demonstrating impact, but fail to give a birds-eye view of the impact you've had. Advances in technology now allow us to publish real-time data on our websites. You can employ real-time data feeds to your website through website plugins or your own custom code. 

Kadince software allows you to publish your own community involvement stats on your website with a custom code snippet. The process is simple and doesn’t require the help of your IT department.

With real-time data on your website, you and your community can know the impact you are making at any given time. Above is an example from York Traditions Bank of real-time donation and volunteer data they post on their website. 

 

 

 

 
When community members are finished digesting the content on your page, what “desired action” do you want them to take? Common desired actions for community involvement pages include sponsorship applications, donation applications, grant applications, volunteer forms, etc. (Learn how to create a form organizations will actually submit.)

A call-to-action (CTA) is the button you place on your webpage that takes readers to the desired action. Being direct in your CTAs will usually result in more desired actions. For example, “Learn More” is a vague CTA and usually results in fewer clicks. A more direct CTA would be “Volunteer With Us” or “Apply Now.” Direct CTAs are best because you explain exactly what you want the person to do, so the reader equally understands what to expect when they click. 

Above is an example of a compelling CTA from Visions CU. Their use of real-time data in their CTA is brilliant!

 

 
After community members click on your CTA, they're typically led to your desired action. The desired action is usually filling out a form of some kind. For example, on Del Norte CU’s new community webpage, after the reader clicks “Register Here,” they are routed to a registration form. When the form is filled out and submitted, that information is then sent to their database. 

Many institutions settle for forms with few automation tools, which results in more work for you and your colleagues. The more form automation tools you have at your disposal, the easier your job is, which allows you to focus on more important tasks. 

Kadince software has a form-building tool that helps you build highly automated forms. Once a Kadince form is filled out, that data automatically runs through a workflow that assigns approval tasks and sends reminders to the right people. This eliminates the need to send countless emails back and forth between colleagues to ensure approvals are happening. Kadince also helps you automatically generate reports on your community involvement data, so you don’t have to build them manually. This functionality has saved Del Norte CU countless hours of data management time.

While this isn’t an exhaustive list, these website elements are some of the most important elements that are often overlooked. I hope that you can take these tips and apply them to your website, so you can better communicate with your community and make your job easier. 

At Kadince, we understand that managing community involvement for a financial institution is no small task. Managing community involvement data, approval tasks, reporting, and telling your community impact story can especially be a hassle. That’s why we built Kadince, community involvement software for financial institutions. We help you collect, manage, and report on your community involvement data, so you can focus on supporting your community. 

To learn how to streamline your community involvement, schedule a personalized demo.

 

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