March 2006

Web site aims to provide members with a 'one-stop-shop' for chapter information

Congratulations to the leaders of the Southeast Outagamie County Chapter (Wisconsin), especially to Web site administrator Juanita Harder, whose site has been named Chapter Web Site of the Month for March.

This site is on its way to becoming a "one-stop-shop" for chapter members—whether it's finding out about the chapter, finding volunteer opportunities, finding the approprate forms/processes needed to request/report/promote activities, or finding out about the great things being done in the chapter.

"We have a good start in having this site become "the place" for our members to go for chapter-related information, but we still have much we want to improve," says Juanita. "It's a work-in-progress, but our entire chapter leadership board feels it will be an increasingly valuable tool in the future, and they provide good ideas and suggestions to improve the site."

Here are some of the features that make this site a winner:

• The home page is inviting and includes a welcome message, a calendar of what's happening in the near future and announcments about upcoming events such as JOIN HANDS DAY, Thrivent Builds projects, election meeting, etc.
• The site has an Upcoming Fund-Raising Activities page that provides good descriptions of the activities and the needs that are being met.
• The About our Chapter section includes a link to the Fraternal Highlights on thrivent.com and uses the "content feeds" feature to automatically post the five most recent news releases from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.
• The calendar is excellent as it is up-to-date, provides good descriptions of activities, and lists a contact person for additional information.
• The Forms page includes a link to all of the forms that are on thrivent.com. Chapter members don't have to search thrivent.com for their forms—they can go right to the chapter Web site.
• The site includes a list of the congregations in the chapter.

Juanita also has a wish list of enhancements to make as she has time, which includes:

• Posting biographies and pictures of the chapter leaderhip board
• Providing up-to-date information about activities that have been completed—describing the impact that was made
• Including a list of links to all the site pages on the top of each page to help improve navigation
• Posting chapter guidelines about the funding request process
• Creating online forms
• And much more

"Our chapter's goal is to drive more people to our site and get them excited about what their chapter and chapter members are doing," says Juanita. "Reaching this goal will help us meet our ultimate goal of getting more people involved and to think of our chapter first when they look for volunteer opportunities."

We encourage you to visit the site at www.lutheransonline.com/southeastoutagamiecountychapter.