Putting a project out to tender is never easy, particularly when you don\’t fully understand the content matter and management is breathing down your neck to secure a good deal. This article aims to help you identify and avoid common pitfalls. By no means is it an exhaustive list, but based on several years of working with charities of all sizes, I\’ve seen the vast majority of mistakes made in the following four areas.

Don\’t over-specify what you want

You are the expert, and you have a good idea of what you want – but, you\’re paying for ideas. That is, you\’re putting the project out to tender because you want to compare the ideas that different companies can bring to the table. For that reason, you want to leave enough room in your request for proposal for that to happen.

Far too often, a proposal goes into great depth about the petty details of a project. Many times, this occurs while neglecting major details which are far more important. For example, I worked on a local charity proposal a couple of years ago, and the 70+ page document had gone into so much detail as to specify where on a page text would appear and what font it would be in. At the same time, they had neglected to mention the target demographic or aims of the site.

In my experience, less is more when it comes to writing a brief. Start with the bare skeleton of what you need and pad it out with just enough information that the web design companies can see where you\’re coming from. Run it past a disconnected friend or colleague for a second opinion – yours can become blurred after staring at a document for several hours/days/weeks!

Be realistic

You have a decent budget and you want to make the most of it. That\’s definitely the right attitude to have, but it can go too far. 99 times out of 100, it\’s far better to concentrate your resources on the really important parts of your site than try to stretch the budget to building huge site that doesn\’t look that great or function that well. Even the best web design companies will pander to your greed if you let them. They need the work and will promise you the earth to get it.

For example, it\’s unlikely that you\’re going to be able to re-create Facebook or Lastminute.com. If you find yourself going down that route, take a step back and consider what it is you really need. It may be that a far simpler solution presents itself.

Set ground rules

Much like a romantic relationship, the working relationship between you and the web design company needs to have ground rules. Both parties must understand who is doing what, and who gets the final say if there is some disagreement.

For example, if you provide 6 paragraphs of text for the \’about our charity\’ page, and the web design company tells you that 2 paragraphs should be your maximum, who makes the final call? Obviously the charity is ultimately in charge, but projects tend to work best when the web design company is able to make firm requests.

Listen to the web design company!

As mentioned above, you hired the web design company for a reason – because they\’re experts on the internet and its workings. It\’s not always easy, particularly as you\’re the expert in your field, but you absolutely *have* to trust that they know what they\’re doing.

In my experience, charities are great at doing this with technical and functional matters; but often fail miserably when it comes to things like content. For example, we worked with a client recently who simply wouldn\’t take our advice and insisted that everything was done a certain way. We did everything in our power to guide them in the right direction, but ultimately they chose to dictate to us and received a site which sadly failed to achieve its full potential. Only now have we been given the opportunity to put it right.

If you don\’t follow any of the potints above, then at the very least ask for and listen to advice!

Author Bio: Mat Durham is the director of Skyblu, a charity web design company based in London and Worcester and serving clients all over the UK.

Category: Internet
Keywords: charity web design, web design for charities, web design