Is your nonprofit launching a new campaign or considering a name change? If so, you may want to consider using one of the many new top-level domain names that are now available to help brand your organization and promote your mission.
First, the basics. What is a top-level domain name?
A top-level domain name is the string of letters to the right of the dot at the end of your website address. Usually for nonprofits it is .org and for companies .com. The words to the left of the dot are your unique name. Together the words to the left and right of the dot become a unique identifier for your organization, e.g., www.givingtreeassociates.com.
Your top-level domain name identifies the kind of entity you are. We have all learned to assess an organization’s purpose by that extension. If it says .org, we assume it is a nonprofit organization. If it says .gov, it is a government entity.
Now imagine
What if you could distinguish your organization or a special campaign from the more than 11 million nonprofits worldwide who use the .org extension?
It just might give you a marketing advantage because domain names are not only a way to organize internet addresses, they have also become a way of branding our organizations.
The Opportunity
Recently many new domain names became available to the general public that are particularly relevant to the nonprofit sector. A few of these suffixes include:
- .charity
- .give
- .care
- .help
- .community
- .foundation
- .church
- .college
- .university
These new options give nonprofits an opportunity to brand themselves in a more powerful way than ever before. For example, if you are launching a capital campaign, you might want a special campaign website with the suffix “.give”
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