OIFE is a European Federation with 18 European and 6 international member organisations. We were founded in 1993 and our first President set up a website many years ago (www.oife.org) and is managing it as volunteer webmaster.

Now our Board has decided that we should try to improve and modernize our website – if necessary with professional help.

We found a young web designer who created a first prototype for a possible new website – the minimum costs for the basic website would be around 3000 € – afterwards we would have to do a lot of work to fill the content management system ourselves to save more expenses…..

Should we go (and pay!) for the professional solution or stay with the old webmaster and website and try for some improvements?

How do other European organisations deal with their websites?
– do you have a professional who built and manages the website or “do-it-yourselves”?
– how much money in relation to your yearly budget do you spend for the website management?
– would you please tell us how much your basic website cost?

REPLIES:

Dear everyone,

Actually I think that the most important tool European associations have is the internet. In my opinion, paying for a professional is the easiest way to obtain a good presence in the web. As long as the money is available and all parties agree, this seems to be a good solution – even if there’s still a lot you have to do on your own, like fill in contents.

Geske, Germany, http://www.ichthyose.eu/

Dear All,

Since we started with hardly any funding we have made a simple Joomla website. Some of our volunteers are learning to work with it in practice.
Of course if we would have more funding we would be able to do better, but I am very satisfied with what we have.
The costs were approx. 600 euros.
The system is so easy that many volunteers can help and that is also very good for our team-building.
I would love to know more, however from a cost/revenue point of view I am very satisfied.

Marieke, NephcEUrope, www.nephcEurope.eu

Hi,

Like all of you, I have had to deal with problems of the website.

It is now considered “normal” to change a website every five years or so.

I would go with a professional, it is worth the money,  BUT make sure the “source” belongs to you. If, one day, you decide to work with somebody else, you need to ‘own’ the site and the design. I have recently experienced this with our blog-forum which simply “disappeared” with its designer  ….

Sylvie, http://www.porphyries-patients.org/

Hi