Division II’s community-engagement Web site has eclipsed 6 million hits in less than three years, reflecting both the usefulness of the resources available on the site as well as the membership’s interest in and commitment to reaching out to their communities.

The Web site (www.diicommunity.org) was developed in 2007 after Division II adopted legislation that facilitated more campus-community involvement in accordance with the division’s strategic-positioning platform that emphasized community engagement as an important characteristic of Division II schools.

The site was populated initially with a healthy “ideas that work” section about community-engagement initiatives that had been successful at various institutions. Visitors to the site were able to select from those ideas and modify them for their own needs.

The site later offered a click-through to the game-environment page after Division II began emphasizing family-friendly environments for its athletics contests. Again, the “ideas that work” segment was a popular landing page for visitors.

Since then, both the community-engagement and game-environment sites have added resources, including videos, links to additional material and tips on how institutions can live out the division’s strategic-positioning platform.

Increased traffic has been the result. In February 2008, the community-engagement Web site attracted about 6,000 visitors that month. But more than 20,000 visitors came to the site in November 2009, pushing the site’s total hits past 6 million.

“When we first started, most people who visited were administrators looking for ideas about community engagement that they could implement on their own campuses,” said Jill Willson, former athletics director at Texas A&M-Kingsville who now serves as a consultant for Division II and oversees the community-engagement and game-environment sites. “These were ideas that other people had vetted and implemented on their own and that were proven to be effective, so all these new visitors had to do was recreate it. It was an easy resource for them.

“But we have diversified since then. We began to add video content on community-engagement events and other resources such as the teachable moments for game environment. So now, people are coming for the other resources, as well.”

Willson said she also sends periodic e-mail alerts to the membership to let them know of additional resources.

“Resourcefulness is one of the division’s six attributes,” noted Division II Vice President Mike Racy. “The traffic on the community-engagement and game-environment sites reflects the membership’s commitment to implementing those initiatives, and Jill has done a good job working with other constituents and online experts to make these resources relevant.”

The two sites have become so relevant, in fact, that Racy said some reorganization is coming for 2010. Willson is conducting an educational session on January 15 at the Convention to unveil plans for enhancements.

“Because we have diversified the site and have given visitors so much more to use, that’s why we’ve had more than six million hits,” Willson said. “We want to make sure we can continue this as a fresh site. We don’t want to get into a routine; we want the site to live and grow as the membership lives and grows.”