Creating a successful charity website design takes a unique understanding. It’s not as simple as using an off-the-peg eCommerce platform or website template, as charities must cater for their unusual and specific remit.

Yet, many charities don’t have a digital strategy. The Charity Digital Skills Report 2021 from Skills Platform found that two in five charities still don’t have a digital strategy in place, even though 83% offer at least some online services, in many cases, in response to COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020.

Charities also expressed some concerns, as 32% said IT is a challenge to achieving their digital plans, and 52% were worried about excluding some parts of their audience.

Suppose you want to build a new website or redevelop an existing one with enhanced functionality. In that case, Visionsharp is a leading charity web design agency with many years of experience in the third sector.

How to create a charity website

Building a charity website does not mean excluding your audience. In fact, it can allow you to reach out to individuals who might be unable to visit your premises or engage with you via other media.

To build a good charity website, there are a few stages you should take into account:

  • Identify your audience
  • Plan the customer’s digital experience
  • Set your objectives
  • Allocate your web design budget
  • Learn a CMS platform
  • Integrate customer relationship management
  • Create a donation funnel

Let’s examine each stage in more detail to understand what is needed to design an excellent charity website.

Identify your audience

First, understand your audience. Do you cater to a specific persona, such as older people or a minority group, or does your website need to work well across all demographics?

Think also about any support your audience might need. This is especially important if you need to support accessibility tools such as screen readers for blind or partially sighted visitors.

Plan the customer’s digital experience

Once you know who you are designing for, you can start thinking about your website’s digital experience from the customer’s point of view.

Think about how you expect people to find your website. Will they arrive at your homepage or appear on another page in their search results? Where do you want them to go next?

Customer journeys can be complete A-Z routes through your site or more general paths that pick up traffic from multiple sources, such as search, social, and email marketing.

Set your objectives

Customer-centric website design is incredibly sensible for charities, but don’t forget to set your objectives.

These likely include raising donations, but this is not the case for all charities. You might already have funding and need your website to raise awareness for your cause.

Allocate your web design budget

Allocating your budget helps you to know what to expect from your website. The more you spend, the bigger and more complicated your website can be, with built-in donation payment processing and customer relationship management software if needed.

Remember to allow for ongoing costs such as URL renewals, server hosting, content creation and online marketing campaigns.

Learn a CMS platform

CMS stands for Content Management System and is a way to publish new content to your website, such as fundraising updates and scheduled events.

You might want to learn the basics of your CMS or hire a web marketing agency to manage your future content creation, publishing, and promotion.

Integrate customer relationship management

Customer relationship management, or CRM, allows your website to support visitors using their specific information.

An example might be a donor portal that allows people to log in and adjust how much they donate or change their contact details.

CRM is an excellent way to track the customers you interact with regularly. It can also improve satisfaction and retention rates, which helps charities retain the most valued individuals in their audience.

Create a donation funnel

If you rely on donations from your supporters, it is essential that your website allows people to make payments directly.

This means you’ll need a payment processing page, similar to checking out on an ordinary eCommerce website. Still, you’ll also need supporting content so visitors can find the page and use it correctly.

A funnel is a customer journey that takes incoming traffic from search, social, email campaigns and direct visits and guides those people to donate.

The easier it is to donate via your website, the more you will raise, so it’s essential to eliminate delay and confusion from your donation funnel at every stage to keep the funds rolling in.

Final thoughts

Remember, your web design is just a template for your content. You should also focus on getting your messaging right, with compelling written content, engaging graphics, and clear calls to action to encourage people to donate or sign up to receive your communications.

Be as inclusive as possible, with all appropriate accessibility tools and technologies built into the very fabric of your website, and you’ll give your pages the broadest possible appeal.

By reaching out to supporters this way, you show your non-profit organisation to be forward-thinking, modern and digitally adept.

As a result, you should see double-digit increases in donations. There will be a much-improved retention of repeat supporters. You may also unlock access to audiences you never knew you had.

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

As an experienced business and finance writer I understand the corporate landscape and the driving forces behind it. Over the years I’ve shared my insight and knowledge with key industry publications and dedicated my time to showing how business leaders can make their organisations more effective.