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Creating a website for your nonprofit is a key step to growing your reach and impact. Having a website allows you to grow your supporter base, educate about your mission, and manage donations, events, and volunteer opportunities all from one home base.
A great nonprofit website highlights your vision, the work you do, and how others can help you make a bigger difference. Use these 4 examples to inspire your design.
1. Bailard
Your nonprofit website doesn’t need to be complicated. Ultimately, the function of a website for most nonprofits is to claim a space online to build brand recognition by sharing your mission, updates, and how others can get involved.
This website example covers those basics. The homepage summarizes the mission of the nonprofit and the dropdown menu under “About” in the header navigation gives people the option to become a partner or learn about the organization’s projects. The “Take Action” call-to-action button in the header is clear and prominent, so visitors can easily find a way to donate or spread the word.
2. Malone
This website for a fictional dog rescue does a great job of making its calls to action extremely clear. As soon as you land on the homepage, the site design draws your attention to three key pieces:
The nonprofit’s tagline: “Making new best friends since 1994.”
A button encouraging visitors to get involved, front and center.
A second button directing visitors to donate in the header navigation.
The rest of the homepage focuses on the most important details for visitors: the dogs. The site makes it easy to see which dog might be a good fit and send an inquiry about adopting after browsing. If a visitor wants to learn more, they can use the header navigation to read each dog’s story on the blog or learn about the team and other services the nonprofit offers.
3. Roseti
Maybe your nonprofit is a smaller community organization with plenty of opportunities to interact. The Roseti template is a great example of how you could structure your website to encourage new members to join or highlight public events.
On top of the clear calls to action to join, the upcoming events on the homepage give visitors an opportunity to get involved or learn more about the organization before committing to a membership. A testimonial from a member emphasizes the benefits, while a newsletter signup form and social media links allow people to follow along and join later.
4. Hoyd
A one-page website is a great way to establish an online presence for a nonprofit. It takes a short time to set up the site and allows you to claim the space for your organization if you want to do more with the website later.
For a one-page site, having one main link or action you want to drive visitors to do is best. In this case, the goal is to gather RSVPs for an event. But you could easily update the copy and button to share more about your mission and encourage visitors to donate or volunteer, depending on the goals of your nonprofit.
Best practices for making a nonprofit website
There are a few things to include on your nonprofit website to make it memorable and impactful to visitors.
Mission statement: A mission statement is a short, 1-3 sentence summary of what you want to accomplish and for whom. Feature this prominently on your website so visitors immediately understand your goals.
Details to back up your legitimacy: If someone’s newer to your organization, having big-picture information about your team, projects you’ve completed, partners, and money raised and spent is useful. It helps visitors feel more connected to your mission and comfortable getting involved.
Clear storytelling: Stories about the work you do and the people your organization impacts or brings together are one of the main ways to make others invested in your work. Add a blog page or link news stories to start highlighting your impact.
Strong calls to action: Decide what your nonprofit’s biggest needs are. Those are your calls to action. For most nonprofits, you’ll likely want to point visitors to a donation or volunteering page. Highlight those pages or forms with bold buttons or large linked text.
Looking for real-life inspiration? Learn more about how nonprofits like Black Connect use their Squarespace website.