You’re justifiably proud of your website. It’s one of your organization’s greatest assets, which is all the more reason why it needs a care plan. You can’t monitor your website constantly. What will you do if it goes offline unexpectedly? Websites have issues. Instead of waiting until disaster strikes, a care plan helps you proactively prepare for and avoid technical problems and potential hacking.
What is a Care Plan?
A care plan is a set of services that consistently keep your website running smoothly, so you don’t have to keep track of it all.
Your organization and its needs are unique. If your website consists of 10 pages, your needs are different than a company that hosts hundreds of pages, for example. Varying degrees of website support, updates, and maintenance are key when considering the type of plan you need.
Why Your Website Needs a Care Plan
Simply put, if your website being offline could hurt your organization, you need a care plan. There are many factors involved in managing your website and keeping it safe. Because these are all “behind the scenes,” it can be easy to overlook any potential risks to your organization’s website. Having a care plan protects your work from these risks.
Protection
The adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of a cure,” applies to why your website needs a care plan. The average website faces automated attacks looking for weaknesses multiple times a day. Sometimes your website can get hacked without you knowing, leaving its safety compromised. You may not be aware of your site’s vulnerability until it’s too late.
Your website isn’t the only critical component at risk when you don’t take protective precautions. Personal information of those you serve can also be vulnerable if you don’t have a care plan in place. You don’t want to have to tell volunteers, donors, or the community you serve that your organization may be responsible for their information being compromised.
Repairs
It’s not uncommon to make a mistake when working on your website. You could even accidentally delete something or unintentionally change your site’s layout. It happens. But then you spend hours poking around, trying to restore things. It’s best for you to spend your time carrying out your organization’s mission, not trying to repair your website. If you have a care plan in place, a web designer or agency can fix this issue for you.
Regular Backups
The worst could happen and your site could crash if you don’t have a backup plan. A backup is a saved copy of the site from a previous date, such as last month, last week, or just this morning.
Let’s say you made some updates and accidentally “broke” a few things on your site. It made the site go down. You need to return the website to an earlier version, but you don’t have any backups. As a result, your website is down, and those you serve can’t access it. This downtime could be costly in many ways.
Having a care plan means you can restore your website if something goes wrong. When you have a care plan, regular backups of your website are stored. That way, it can be restored to the version of a particular date if something goes awry.
Changes
It’s crucial to keep your website updated, whether adding text for an upcoming fundraising campaign, creating a new page, modifying a layout, or executing a website redesign. Sure, you could make these changes yourself, but it takes time – and mistakes happen. Investing in a care plan means you are connected with trusted professionals who can do this for you. Many plans offer add ons for additional hours for changes, large and small. Some include content fixes and basic Q&A or training resources. .
Support
Having peace of mind about your website is irreplaceable. When you’re making changes to your site, being able to email or call a web designer with questions is helpful. Care plans often include support services for your in-the-moment website needs.
How CauseLabs Can Help
Technology evolves. Your organization needs to make regular – visible and “behind the scenes” – updates to its website to stay relevant and protected from threats. Without regular maintenance, your website will eventually face obstacles that could potentially be costly. Updating your website yourself can be difficult, taking valuable time away from your mission. These are reasons your website needs a care plan. Invest in a CauseLabs Care Plan before something goes awry.
If CauseLabs didn’t build your website, we can still help you. Our care plan audit allows us to check your website for any issues and offers recommendations or a quote to help you fix them. Set up a call today to book a care plan audit.
