Eight Principles of Successful Non-Profit Web Projects

Building a global online network between multiple stakeholders–especially non-profit organizations–can be a daunting task. Although technical considerations are important, contrary to popular belief, the primary challenges have less to do with technology and more to do with human emotions.

While working for the United Nations, in 2002, I visited three organizations that operated top class websites ELDIS, OneWorld.net and SciDev.net. Each of them had a reputation for excellent news services, publication quality, knowledge management and above all–buzzing online communities. The purpose of my mission was to research their success secrets in order to guide our organization through the process of developing our own global web project. After three days of meetings, which resulted in volumes of notes and technical details, all our discussions boiled down to just eight simple principles, which are summarized below.

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Starting a Web Project

You’re about to start a new web project. Say your skill level is nearly zero, you have never developed any web project before, so this article is definitely going to help you in getting your job done quite nicely. This piece contains basically guidelines for naïve developers, what to do and how to if you intend to develop a web project. I thought to write it down to help decrease the problems new developers face when they embark on such projects, like I had to face doing my very first web project.

The very first thing you need is to ‘plan and organize’ whatever you want to develop. The better you understand your web project, the easier your life would be during development phase. The requirements must be explicitly defined and well-understood before starting the development. Choose the programming language of your choice (i.e. PHP, Asp.Net, etc). Choose the corresponding tool i.e. Dreamweaver, Visual Studio, etc. (I shall recommend to use the latest versions of whatever tool you choose, that may bring flexibility in your programming and to have maximum helpsupport from their online forums as well). During planning phase, decide on the pages and its contents you need to include, make lists, understanding the process flow may help in this phase. During this phase, you’ll also need to decide on the web design for your project and for that; you’ll need to have a good knowledge about CSS, jQuery, etc.

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Using Metal Hardware on Your Nylon Webbing Projects

The benefit of ordering a custom-made designer dog collar is the ability to choose the type of hardware used on that collar – metal or plastic. Each material has its advantages and disadvantages. This article will primarily focus on metal hardware. Metal hardware is also used on many types of projects other than dog collars.

Metal hardware is an essential component of all webbing projects with the obvious advantage of strength and durability. Most hardware used in dog collars, leashes, climbing harnesses and other webbing projects is nickel-plated and welded to resist rust. But some of the hardware can be purchased in brass and other plantings’. There is also a variety of sizes that will correspond to all widths of webbing’s, whether it is nylon or polypro webbing.

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