The web provides many advantages as a communications platform, but when you visit the websites of non-profit organizations around North America it is surprising to see how often those advantages are negated because the sites are not up to date.

An outdated website wastes the time of your visitors and undermines your organization’s credibility. It also directly affects your revenue. If events and campaigns are not publicized early enough and with appropriate frequency, participation will drop.

That these threats are frequently not addressed points to a universal management problem among NPOs – the lack of time on the part of staff and volunteers to update the website content. This arises often from bottlenecks created when web content is the responsibility of only a very few people, even in cases when the organization has multiple websites to manage across branches or regions.

A solution could be decentralized content publishing -- assigning responsibility for various content updating tasks to different people. But this solution might not always be the answer.

There are disadvantages to decentralized content publishing from a management point of view. The national organization does not want to find that many voices are representing the organization in many different ways.

Should a chapter publish incorrect information or inappropriate opinions, the national organization may find itself managing a public relations nightmare. Organization-wide branding is a key concern. So is managing the timing and consistency of messages across the organization.

Then there are costs to consider. Decentralized content publishing typically means that each chapter or regional office has its own website to manage. Often the costs of those sites – hosting, design, maintenance and support -- are managed at a local level and the national organization is not aware of the total impact. Duplication of effort becomes a serious financial issue.

Further, many of the business advantages of the web can be cancelled by a structure that engages multiple content authors to supply multiple websites. Chapters will invariably select different databases or formats, making it difficult or impossible to gather data for the entire organization and to run association-wide reports critical for decision making.

Common Platform, Common Workflow

The dilemma facing many NPOs, then, is whether to centrally manage the website content with the constant risk of it being outdated, or to assign responsibility for content to many authors with the risk of organizational disarray.

Fortunately there is a solution available that combines decentralized content publishing with a common management platform – a multi-site content-management system.

With this type of technology all sites, the national site and all chapters, can be operated from a single administration platform that incorporates easy publishing tools combined with restricted access management and workflow approval processes.

Simple tools let the organization’s communications manager quickly set up user rights by selecting the desired access level for any given user on any affiliated website. An integrated workflow approval process makes it possible for various people to be assigned different roles in the process, such as page creator, page reviewer or page publishers.

Chapters can be given total autonomy or some pages can be reserved for use by the national organization. This keeps consistency of messaging and branding in place while permitting local flexibility.

Staff or volunteers can update web content easily, using familiar editing tools. Content creation can be delegated to any number of individuals, with specific website areas assigned to people with appropriate expertise.

An effective multi-site content management system can reduce publishing times from weeks to minutes and remove many of the common bottlenecks encountered in typical publishing processes.

Do users of the system need to be technically savvy? No, but they do need basic communications skills and an understanding of best practices on the web – content writing principles, the importance of links and easy navigation, the principles of search-engine optimization and techniques for content creation that increase usability and user satisfaction.

The multi-site content management system should come with tools that support such best practices and the technology provider should be prepared to offer excellent training to the system users.

In summary, a multi-site content management system can be the technological solution that makes decentralized content publishing successful. It can enable non-technical users at each chapter to publish information themselves, using a common platform that promotes collaboration and permits the national organization to have the branding and messaging influence it needs.