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.
4. Find a host for the site.
   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:

• Kiwanis International offers a free option for clubs seeking just to have a public web site. See the information at the link for details.
• 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 $200 setup fee.
• Member Day allows you to set up club web sites which include both a public-facing web site and internal functions. Cost starts at $25 per month for clubs up to 250 members; the external web site builder is $5 per month more. No setup fees.

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.