Last issue’s theme, corporate community service, led me to look for a related site to review in this Best of Web issue. I found one that not only does a lot of good, but also offers a terrific user experience. The content, messaging, informational hierarchy, visual design, and interface all address donors’ and volunteers’ concerns beautifully.

The first thing you see on the networkforgood.com home page is “donate now” in a big yellow button. That’s the point of the site, and since it’s so prominent, it’s likely to be the first thing visitors click on. It leads to a page that tells you how to use the site, lets you search for charities, and helps you figure out what level of giving is right for you.

For non-clickers who may have doubts about the site, the home page answers key questions in a way that’s more “about you” than “about us.” Why is this site special? Because you can “give to your favorite charities in one place.” Is this organization trustworthy? The first box under the yellow button tells you that it’s easy, and that they’ll keep all your donation records for tax time, while the logos below assure you that Network for Good is backed by great companies. Is it OK to donate here? The second box says that 300 million others have already done so. “Learn more” buttons in each box link to testimonials and details on effectiveness, such as that 97 percent of your donation goes straight to charities. Another call-to-action box sits to the right. (Go on, just do it.)

Maybe you don’t know who you want to donate to. On the left, “hot topics,” appropriately headlined in orange, tells you which world communities are in the greatest need right now. If you want to benefit your own community, the search tool above “hot topics” lets you specify whether you want to donate or volunteer, what kind of needs you want to address, and where you live.

The menu bar across the top gives you other ways to find, manage, and record your donations and service efforts. Under “donate,” you can find charities, buy donations as gifts, store your favorite charities, calculate how much you should give, and so on. Under “volunteer,” you can look for opportunities, keep service records, join a youth network, and learn about effective volunteering. “Crisis relief” leads you to descriptions of disaster areas and their needs. “My profile” is your own private service and donation database. And finally, a pull-down menu connects you to special interest areas, such as Animals & Environment or Education & Research. Above all of this is a special link, “Are you a nonprofit?” that leads to a site with comprehensive information and services for managers of charities.

This took several paragraphs to describe in words, but the visual design makes it look clear and simple. That’s partly because of the sun-and-blue-sky colors and generous white space, but mostly because of the unusual reading pattern the design imposes. Most sites organize information in choppy rows and columns. This one organizes it in a spiral—a natural page-scanning pattern. You start at that yellow button, swing down and to the left, move up through hot topics and search, and sweep across the menu.

Compare this to a more typical charity site, justgive.com. The colors are harsh, the layout is rigid, the imagery is bleak, and the language is peremptory. It doesn’t tell you why you should use this site or address the all-important question, “What’s in it for me?”

The bottom line is the bottom line. Where Just Give raised about $13.74 million in 2004, Network for Good raised $16.4 million —20 percent more—as well as placing about 40,000 volunteers. Clearly, both organizations have been successful, but considering that Just Give launched exactly one year earlier—in November, 2001, soon after 9/11 raised America’s consciousness on the need to give—Network for Good is doing a terrific job of catching up. Obviously services, professional networks, sponsorships, and so on affect the level of donations. But the quality of this site’s messaging, content, and interface must help.

Will the quality stay that high deeper into the site? From a donor or volunteer’s point of view, the hardest job is to select just one charity from the million or so doing good work in this country. Let’s see what happens when we click on Darfur in Hot Topics.

The lead story is a brief, objective description of this tragedy in Sudan, without histrionics or guilt trips. Action items follow immediately. You can raise awareness among your own network by sending an “action e-card,” then decide whether you want to donate, volunteer, or learn more. The neat, clearly separated columns make the lists easy to navigate. When you click “donate,” you get the full story on the charity’s programs, executives, contact info, assets, and recent accomplishments. Click “volunteer,” and the organization’s own web page loads onto the Network for Good page. You don’t get a mess of pop-ups, but you will get everything you need to make an informed decision. If you aren’t ready to commit, you can add the charity to a list of favorites.

Let’s try going into the site another way. Say you want to work with kids closer to home. Enter “youth” and your zip code in the home page’s search tool, and you immediately get a list of relevant organizations with links to descriptions of the organizations and the jobs they need help with. If you don’t see anything interesting, you can do an advanced search covering skills, partners, and the kinds of people you want to work with. Again, the layout is clean, open, and easy to use. The “short cuts” pull-down menu leads you to the same kind of information by way of an overview page. Here, while the information is dense, it helps you zero in on special interests and remains orderly. If you’re having trouble choosing, “This Week’s Features” at the upper right zeros in for you.

The designers observed other niceties across the site, which are basic best practices in web design, but which some sites don’t seem to manage. They controlled the page size, and therefore the layout, by setting a plain gray flood plain—the area between the page and the browser frame. They frame every page with the appropriate identity elements. By appropriate, I mean the elements that are relevant to the page in question. For instance, the Donate overview page has the logo, menu bar, search tool, and features section, while the Gift Baskets page has just the logo and menu bar, and personal records pages have just the logo and a dark blue bar. You don’t need everything on every page, and you don’t get it. This kind of detail shows real respect for visitors.

In the introduction, I said that what’s important about this site is not just the design, but the way it uses the best of what the web has to offer. Remember 1996, when all those irritatingly young, cocksure internet programmers and designers were telling us that the net was going to change the world? I thought they were nuts. They weren’t.

The vast seas of information in its databases, linked across the world, and organized by intelligent visual and interface design, are making grassroots action one-click simple. This site is a prime example. It uses the power of the net efficiently and appropriately to bring people together in ways that make the world a little bit better every day.

TOP: Network for Good is one of many portal sites for charities that use the power of the internet to rally communities—and the power of good design to make taking action easy.