"Our website has been critical in our response to the coronavirus crisis."
Communicating During Times of Crisis
Meals on Wheels of Yolo County needed a solution for communicating pertinent coronavirus crisis information on their website.
“With Meals on Wheels in the public eye as an ongoing essential service, our website has been critical in our response to the coronavirus crisis, as we serve some of the most vulnerable to the crisis,” explained Tim Eng, Deputy Director at MOW Yolo County.
Through a combination of pop-up alerts, powerful banner imagery, and the ability to highlight a menu full of shelf-stable meals, MOW of Yolo County has been able to effectively and easily communicate with their community while continuing operations as an essential service to the public.
Actionable steps that were taken to improve digital communications:
- Pop-up alerts: During these challenging times, MOW of Yolo County is focusing on serving their existing clients. They needed a way to quickly share resources for other low-income seniors in their community, including their local food bank and affordable bags full of essential grocery items that could be picked up curbside or placed directly into vehicles. They also chose to highlight their donation page in the pop-up alert to help offset some of the additional, unexpected costs they are incurring.
- Menu updates: During the crisis, shelf-stable and frozen meals are being delivered to regular clients. Visitors do not need to search for the available menu, and can instead see what is being delivered directly on the homepage.
- Powerful, precise banner imagery: By choosing to publish one banner image that spotlights the most pertinent COVID-19-related information, distractions were eliminated and visitors were guided to a page that lists resources and a donation link.
- Texting: Our flexible texting plans, which you can stop and start as needed, allow you to direct your supporters to an online donation page right on their phone.
- Stable hosting: With clients, families, and members of the community seeking regular updates, a significant surge in site traffic has occurred. OneEach Technologies hosts all of our customers’ websites on our secure, managed servers which were built to seamlessly handle these spikes without any service disruptions.
Since 2000—and through disasters such as the September 11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and the California Wildfires—one of OneEach Technologies’ missions has been to help nonprofits of all sizes reach members of their community through the use of technology during times of crisis. Now, more than ever before, communication is key.