How to Make a Nonprofit Website.
In this blog post, I’m going to discuss how to make a nonprofit website.
Creating a website for a nonprofit is much different than what you would want to create for a business. A business website centers around the end goal of convincing people to give you their money in exchange for a product, whereas a nonprofit is centered more around a cause or idea that needs funding.
You’ll be met with several challenges unique to building this kind of website, but don’t worry, I’m here to guide you through them all.
Why a Nonprofit Needs a Good Website
The answer to the question “does a nonprofit need a good website?” should be a resounding yes on all sides, but some people don’t see a need for their own place on the web. To be fair, if you are helping to run a small non-profit that already gets funding from people in your local area it’s easy to make this assumption. People are concerned that they’ll have to shell out a lot of money to create and maintain their website, or they’re worried that it’ll be too much work.
In reality, it’s not that expensive to set up a simple website if you do it right. The cost of a website depends on the number of features you want to be added to your subscription, so if a non-profit can’t afford much, it’s best to go with a small, cheaper plan. As long as you choose a good provider and don't plan on selling products on the website, a cheaper plan will give you everything you need. You can make it even cheaper if you use a regular email account instead of a professional one.
As far as time goes, that will depend on whether or not you plan on regularly adding new content. I recommend having a blog or news section of some kind, but you don’t have to post every week. I only post on Written With Design’s blog once every two weeks. New blog posts can help people stay up-to-date with what you’re doing and bring more attention to your group/organization.
Creating Your Nonprofit Website
Now that you’ve decided to create your nonprofit website, let's see what other steps you should take.
Choose a hosting platform
Create your main web pages
Set your site up to receive donations
Create a blog to inform people and help them find the website
The first step to creating a great nonprofit website is to choose a good hosting provider. I should mention at this point that, if you decide to go with a provider that offers a free plan, you’ll still have to pay for an SSL and a registered domain. You might also have to pay for a credit card processing service like Merchant One, Square, or Paypal Premier if you plan on receiving donations through your website.
Wix is a popular choice for making nonprofit websites because they offer a free plan. You’ll still have to pay to register your domain, but it’s less than twenty dollars a year, so it won’t break your bank. So far I haven’t used Wix before but they do offer a good amount of features especially in their paid plans.
That being said, you’ll only be able to accept donations through your Wix site if you use Paypal Premier or add the Get Funding App that Wix offers. You may be able to use another payment provider, but you should contact Wix first to make sure the two are compatible.
As I’ve mentioned in early blog posts, I favor Squarespace. It’s the first hosting provider I ever worked with and they’re the company hosting Written With Design’s website. They don’t have a free plan, but their plans have a lot of features and their templates are modern and fairly easy to customize. They also give you the option of adding a donation button. If you want more information on how to set up a Squarespace website, I wrote an earlier blog post that goes into detail on the subject.
Those are just two examples, but there are a lot of hosting providers who offer really good service. Here are a few other hosting providers you can use to build and host your nonprofit website...
NetworkSolutions
GoDaddy
Bluehost
Creating Your Nonprofit Website’s Pages
Once you’ve chosen a hosting provider and a template, it’s time to start writing. Your nonprofit website needs to get people interested in what you’re doing, so the copy needs to be detailed and engaging. You’ll also have to decide how many pages your nonprofit website will have.
You can add as many pages as you want, but there are four main pages your nonprofit website needs to have…
Home Page
About Page
Contact Page
Donate Page (if you plan on accepting donations through your website)
These pages let people know what your nonprofit does, when it got started, and how they can help. After that, your next step is to convince them that they should donate their time, money, or other resources to your cause.
Your Home Page
Your home page is the first thing people see when they visit your nonprofit website, so you have to make a good first impression. In order to do that, you need to include the following in your home page copy…
Welcome the visitor
Briefly introduce your nonprofit
Encourage them to visit the other pages
ask them to donate, volunteer, etc.
Welcoming your visitor is good etiquette and makes your website more appealing. When you introduce your nonprofit, you should keep it concise and to the point, you’ll be able to go into further detail when you write the about page. Briefly explain your nonprofit’s mission and add in one interesting fact, such as when your nonprofit first started.
You should also add links to your other pages, especially the donate page, and encourage them to donate. It’s best to embed the link into some of the wording. You can look and Written With Design’s home page for an example of this.
Your About Page
I have an entire blog post that deals with creating about pages, so if you want to read that click here. Otherwise, here are a few things you should include in your nonprofit website’s about page…
Your nonprofit’s history
The cause you support
How people can get involved
Any future plans or projects
You need to create an about page that’s personal, and the best way to do that is with a story. Tell people how and why your nonprofit got started. What difficulties and successes did you experience? Does your nonprofit have a plan for future growth, or is it doing the most good by staying the way it is now?
All of these are questions you can address with your about page, and most importantly you can let people know how they can help your nonprofit fulfill its mission. Whether you need volunteers, donations, or both, people will want to help if they know they can make a difference.
Your Contact Page
People need to be able to contact you or someone else associated with your nonprofit. If no one can contact you it looks suspicious. You should have some of your contact information in your website’s footer (that area at the bottom of a website that stays the same no matter what page you click on), but your contact page will have everything on it.
Social media accounts
Your nonprofit’s email address
Phone number
Mailing address (if your nonprofit has one)
Most templates will have an about page built into them, so all you have to do is add your nonprofit’s information. That’s why the contact page will be the easiest page to create for your nonprofit website. If you want an example, you can look at Written With Design’s contact page and see how it’s set up.
Your Donation Page
This page can be whatever you want it to be. You can add another touching story about someone your nonprofit has helped and how it was only possible because of people’s donations. Whatever you decide to do, your nonprofit website’s donation page has to do three things...
Stir your site visitor’s emotions
Remind them how donations help your cause
Encourage them to donate immediately
If you prefer to keep it short, you can have a donate button/form with something like this beside it:
“The important work that (your nonprofit’s name) does is only possible because of the financial support we receive from people like you. You are making a difference in these people’s lives just as much as we are. Please consider donating today, you could be the change someone is desperately needing.”
You can also decide to add a page with stories about people, animals, or even places your nonprofit has helped in the past. This page isn’t mandatory, but it will help draw people in and make them even more convinced that your nonprofit is legit and their money is going to a good cause. If you would still like help creating a website for your nonprofit, go ahead and contact me. I’ve worked with a local nonprofit before and helped them update their website.