It’s all change here at Do Nation: a new web address, a new home page, a new Chief Doer – and a new blog.

Today, we moved to a new home, a home that will soon unite our two halves, pulling together the work we do with businesses, charities and universities with the original site raising sponsorship for personal challenges through actions.

That home is www.wearedonation.com.

Here’s the story behind it all.

Four years ago, we launched what we now call “Donate by Doing”. It was a clever website doing something completely new: allowing people to raise sponsorship for personal challenges through actions, instead of cash. It lived on a slightly clunky.org.uk URL, and there it has sat happily for the last four years.

Last September, we launched a shiny new and completely separate site for our growing base of business customers, through which they could help their employees to save energy whilst living happier, healthier and more sustainable lives. It turned out that universities were really interested in it too. And charities. But we’d chosen a web address that really put us in the business niche – dogoodforbusiness.com (it also seemed to make a lot of people think we were in the business of selling dog food…).

Whilst we focused all our efforts and might on building up our business arm, we had to leave Donate by Doing on the back shelf, gathering dust. This saddened me – it was the original inspiration and my baby, I still had clear visions of it growing big and bold. And so we kept the old .org.uk site running, supporting any users of Donate by Doing who happened to seek us out.

This has been a bit of an SEO disaster – search for ‘DoNation’ and the first thing to come up was our old website, meanwhile the shiny, new fully-functioning one got buried low down on the second page. You live and learn, eh?

What’s the new set up?

Our new web address, wearedonation.com, will get all aspects of the Do Nation working beautifully together again. This is where you will find our blog and the actual client programmes and, in the near future, get to the Donate by Doing microsite – donatebydoing.wearedonation.com, or donatebydoing.org for short.

What are the implications?

1.  Disruption free, we hope.

We’ve set up redirects so that all old URL’s should take you to the equivalent place on the new site. It’s been far from straightforward, so if you spot any glitches please let us know by dropping Jesy a line on jesy@wearedonation.com, she’ll fix it up pronto.

2. New email addresses:

Yes, the team all have swanky new “@wearedonation.com’ email addresses. But our old ones still work, so really that’s a moot point.

3. New blog:

Yes, we have a shiny new blog. And you’re reading it.

It’s oh so modern, with tags and picture and everything.

You can even follow it (look to the bottom right corner, hey-oh).

4. SEO:

The theory is that the change should help our Google rankings, but until it happens, I can’t be sure. By the time you’re reading this, the answer should becoming clearer…

5. New home page:

While we were at it, we freshened up our home page a little. Well, a lot.

(Much thanks to the wonderful Lucy Langdon for that inspiration).

I hope you like it.  It is currently focused on our business programmes, but once we’ve revamped Donate by Doing, that will change.

Meanwhile

On which note, it’s time to introduce Polly.

Polly is one of our real Do Heroes. Not only has she been Doer of the Month, raising pledges for the Wycombe Half Marathon back in 2012, but she’s also written a Do Action and tirelessly helped promote Do Good for Business. Now, as Chief Doer, she’s taking up the reigns of Donate by Doing, preparing to launch it into a bold new phase of life.  Watch this space.

The future is …

We’ve still got a long way to go, to make two distinct but linked platforms work smoothly in unison is no mean feat. But we’re on our way, and once we get there, I really believe it’ll be the key to unlock people power on scale.

Of course, if you have any feedback on the new site, please drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you.