Put Your Club on the Internet

More Kiwanis clubs are creating a presence on the World Wide Web in order to further club projects and goals. Your club doesn't have to be left behind.

If you would like to put your club on the Internet, here's what you need to do:

1. Talk to your club's board and get its support.
2. Find a person or small group of volunteers who would be willing to build and maintain the site. Sites, once posted, must be kept up to date in order to maintain credibility, so an updating method must be part of your plan.
3. Decide if you want to get a domain name for your club or make use of an existing web address. This issue has several components:
   • Your own domain name gives you a more easily remembered address, such as www.yourclub.com (or www.yourclub.org), instead of www.ispname.com/~yourclubname.
   • While getting your own domain name can cost as much as $35 per year, it also can make it more difficult to find free space on a web server for your site.
4. Locate space on a web server where your site will be posted. There are many options for this, varying in cost from free to very expensive. Most clubs will be best served by one of the low-cost options.
   Hosting on Kiwanis.info
   If you are interested, a low-cost site hosting plan is available to Kiwanis clubs and divisions through kiwanis.info. More information is available.
5. Consult the Kiwanis International Web Site Guidelines for requirements and approved practices.
6. Determine what the goals are for the site. Do you want to inform club members? Members of your community? The world at large? All of the above? You need to determine who your audience will be before you design the site.

Once you've accomplished that, you can turn to the nuts and bolts of creating a web site. You can put your club on the web without having to spend months learning HTML or hiring a graphic artist.

Creating a Web Site

You have two basic options when planning to build your site:

There are service providers with web site templates in place ready to accommodate your club's web site. They eliminate the need to know how to write web pages, and make it easier for several club members to individually contribute content to the site. These services, which will cost more than simple web hosting and do include the hosting as well, provide varying degrees of services behind the scenes which can be used not only for a public web site but to assist with the management of your club.

Two providers of this service are tailored to Kiwanis clubs:

• Portal Buzz has an active relationship with Kiwanis International and with most of the Kiwanis districts in North America to provide monthly reporting service, which clubs in the districts involved can use at no charge. Clubs have the option of purchasing services which include both club management and your public web site. Costs are based on the size of your club; they range from $150 to $400 per year.
• Club Runner provides a public web site as well as features designed to help clubs manage their activities online. Prices start at $23 per month for small clubs, and are higher for larger ones. There also is a $199 setup fee, and an additional $100 fee to have their advertising removed from your site.

These services are multi-faceted. They will host your site, with your own domain name. They are what are known as "content management systems" which allow people to post information by completing forms in an administration area of the web site. Once they submit their information, it is displayed on the public site. Multiple club members can be involved in the process, and none of them need to know how to create or upload web pages.

In the case of Club Resource, clubs also can use many "behind-the-scenes" features to further private communication among club members and officers, as well as do club record keeping tasks.

The content manager providers require you to use a format for your site that they have available. Some options may be available, but you will not have the ability nor be required to design the site's look.

The other option is to create the site on your own from design to implementation.

Graphics and other assistance in building a web site are available on the Kiwanis International Web site. Kiwanis logos also can be downloaded for use on club sites.

You can prepare web pages by writing them in HTML. There are many software programs available to do this, some free.

If you aren't sure how to proceed from this point, it may be best to find volunteers who are familiar with the issues involved in creating a web site, or seeking out start-up help from adjoining clubs or others in your community who may be able to help.