You can think of your website as your nonprofit’s online headquarters. This is where you provide information about your mission, offer updates about campaigns and events, and house important tools like donation forms.
Because your website is the hub of your nonprofit’s online presence, it’s worth taking the time to get the design of your site just right, whether you’re building a website for the first time or revamping your current one.
But these days, especially with the increasing ubiquity of user-friendly nonprofit website building tools, it may be difficult to know whether a template-based design or a custom job is right for your organization.
Here’s the thing about custom nonprofit websites that give them an edge over DIY-type, template-based designs: A custom nonprofit website is like a fingerprint—it’s unique to your nonprofit and your nonprofit alone. And on top of having a unique look and feel, a custom website is built with the features and tools that meet your specific organization’s needs.
To help you decide which path your nonprofit should take, let’s take a deeper dive and explore four signs that your nonprofit needs a custom website:
Even if your nonprofit isn’t quite to the point where you need a custom website, knowing these four signs can help you be proactive in how you manage your current site and make it the best it can be. Plus, you’ll be able to recognize your nonprofit’s needs and kickstart the custom design process when the time comes. Let’s jump right in!
1. Supporters are struggling to find you online.
Say a potential supporter meets one of your staff members at the grocery store. They strike up a conversation, and the potential supporter expresses an interest in donating to your organization. The staff member excitedly encourages the potential supporter to go to your website to complete their gift.
Back at home, the potential supporter Googles your nonprofit, but your website is nowhere to be found! Consequently, your nonprofit loses the donation this potential supporter wanted to give.
The last thing you want for your cause and your beneficiaries is to be MIA on the internet. But you have to be proactive in helping your audience find you, just like sending out invitations when you plan a party.
So, how can you let people know your nonprofit is online? Here are three suggestions:
Employ SEO best practices. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website content so that it’s more visible to search engines like Google. According to Cornershop Creative’s guide to SEO for nonprofits, doing things like targeting specific keywords in your website’s written content or securing backlinks to your website from other authoritative sites can signal to Google that your website should be ranked higher up on its results pages, thus increasing visibility.
Apply for the Google Ad Grant. The Google Ad Grant is a little different from a traditional grant. It’s simply a grant that provides eligible nonprofits with $10,000 of monthly Google Ads—the paid search results that show up at the top of the Google results page when a relevant query is Googled. It’s an easy way to get attention for your nonprofit! Check your eligibility to start the application process.
Direct people to your site from your social media profiles. You can also let your supporters know that your website is alive and well by leveraging your social media presence. After all, the average internet user spends about two and half hours a day on social media. So, by linking to your website content in your social media posts and including a link to your website in your profile, you can nudge your followers to check out your website and all it has to offer.
An experienced web design professional can help your supporters find your nonprofit online. For example, as they design your custom site, they can set you up with the framework for an SEO-friendly website and coach you through optimizing future content for the web. Some web designers can even provide consulting on opportunities like the Google Ad Grant!
2. The user experience on your current site could be better.
When a visitor lands on your website, what is their experience like? Do they find your site useful and intuitive to use? Does an impressive design draw their attention to your important tools and resources?
Taking a look at your website from your visitors’ perspective might show you that there’s some room for improvement when it comes to how your website looks and functions from the front-end.
Here are a few potential user experience problem areas a web design agency can help you with:
Load speed: To improve conversions on your website, your pages should be loading in 1-4 seconds, according to Portent. In other words, the longer it takes for your web page to load, the less likely it is that your website visitors will do something other than get frustrated and exit your site. To improve your website’s load speed, compress all of your visual files and minimize redirect chains.
Accessibility: Your site should be accessible to users of all abilities. If it’s not, you’re shutting out part of your community of supporters who could make a big difference in your organization’s ability to move its mission forward! You may even be coming up short in meeting website accessibility requirements for your country or state. Maximizing accessibility can begin by ensuring that your content is easy to read and understand and all multimedia content has alt text or captions.
Mobile-responsiveness: Have you ever done the “pinch-and-zoom” when looking at a website on your mobile device? It can be incredibly frustrating to try to read content that isn’t mobile-optimized. To make sure your website can be viewed on all devices, minimize the use of pop-ups, check that the typography you’re using is legible on mobile, and size buttons, links, and menus so they’re able to be tapped.
When you invest in a custom-built website, you can better anticipate your website visitors’ needs before they arise. A skilled designer can help you identify potential problem areas and make proactive changes. For example, if your volunteer registration form is difficult to find, you might build specific call-to-action (CTA) buttons into your homepage so that visitors can more easily access that resource.
3. You want your site to stand out from the crowd.
When you explore your options for a DIY, template-based website, do you ever feel like you have limited choices for how your website will look? Maybe you’ve tried to set up your website by yourself on WordPress, for example, and you kept running into templates that you’ve seen a dozen times before.
It’s no wonder that picking through a list of templates can be a little off-putting. By settling for an oft-used website template, you’re doing your nonprofit a disservice because you’ve likely spent countless hours engineering your nonprofit’s branding strategy.
Everything from your logo to your tagline and chosen color scheme are unique to your organization and its mission. So, trying to shoehorn your branding into a pre-built website template may feel like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
The beauty of a custom-designed website is that your final product will truly be tailored to your organization, strengthening your organization’s branding and boosting recognition from supporters. You won’t have to settle for a certain font or navigation menu configuration just because “that’s the way the template is.” Instead, you can get exactly what you want.
This is not only great for standing out on the web, but also for providing a cohesive, streamlined experience for your community of supporters. For example, when someone sees the decor at your organization’s gala and then sees the same branding and design elements on your website, your organization will come across as organized, professional, and legitimate.
4. You want custom engagement and fundraising features.
One of the most important functions of your nonprofit website is to host useful tools and resources that empower your community to take action for your cause. For example, you might want to offer the following resources to your community:
Custom donation and registration forms
Online merchandise store
Board member, staff, or volunteer portal
Advocacy tools
Peer-to-peer fundraising pages
Events calendars and landing pages
In addition, you may also want your nonprofit website to seamlessly integrate with your organization’s CRM and payment processing systems. The right web design partner can help you create custom integrations between your website and the software your nonprofit already relies on to keep its operations running.
An experienced web developer can also take on tasks to build more complex features. For example, say you want a customized eCommerce website for merchandise or sponsorship opportunities, or an interactive giving day website with a fundraising thermometer and a leaderboard to encourage competition. The right designer can bring your vision to life.
If you’re starting to see the signs that your nonprofit needs a custom website, the next step is to start researching potential web design agencies to work with. Take a close look at your top picks’ portfolios and customer reviews, and be sure to choose an agency that will respect your organization’s unique website design needs. Good luck!
About the Author:
This is a guest post from De’Yonté Wilkinson at Cornershop Creative. De’Yonté is a late-80s baby who found his passion for web design and development during MySpace’s heyday when he helped his friends create awesome profiles. He has spent the last three years specializing in WordPress and conversion optimization and is an active proponent of coding guidelines. In his off time, he enjoys cooking, Rugby, and hanging out with his wife.