Personally I think a long list of questions people need to match their needs/interests to is going to turn people off quickly. Likewise any lengthy text explanation of what DC is/does. Like it or not we're still subject to the laws of marketing and attention getting here. So I think we should focus on something that is both eye-catching and informative, something that invites exploration and gives a quick overview, a jumping-off point for more info and exploration.
With that in mind I think something like a "news fader" might be a good approach, obviously customized to DCs needs. Here's a good example:
http://demo.joomlaworks.gr/With that kind of system, you would come up short titles/text that represent each thing DC does, and eye-catching visuals to represent them (maybe Cody graphics?). Each one links to a section of the site. The currently showing/featured one (they rotate automatically) gives the most info, but you also have the benefit of a quick overview from reading the titles and seeing the image thumbnails on the side. It seems like the best of both worlds to me.
I think a site-wide "news roll" (automatically updated one hopes, maybe with feeds from forums, coding snacks, etc.) would be a good complement to the above for less frequent visitors who have already been here before and know what DC is and just want to keep updated infrequently. All content on this page should have RSS feeds of course.
- Oshyan