Charity Web Agency

Howard Lake | 29 October 2012

Tip for your website from a Charity Web Agency

The world of charity website design and build has changed. It’s no longer good enough to think of your charity’s website as a nice to have, or to design, build and promote your website without evidence to back up your choices.

Most of all, when you consider a new charity website project, you must consider the target audience and key objectives. What’s the website going to achieve for your charity? Is it a fundraising site? Or one that educates supporters about your cause? Or one that provides a deeper engagement for existing donors to your charity?

They has over 14 years’ experience as a charity web agency, helping not for profit organisations increase donations, deliver fundraising websites, and implement cause-based marketing campaigns. Time and time again we see the main challenges for creating a website for one of our charity clients being a clear understanding of their target audience, and what they want the website to achieve for the organisation.
Segmenting your supporters is a good first step. It allows your charity to understand what your supporters want from your website, and even more broadly in the other areas where you engage with them, be it online or offline.

Taking stock of your charity’s overall long term strategy and linking it to the website’s goals is the counterpoint to what your supporters want, though the goals of your charity and your supporters will often share common ground.

Choosing the right emotional tone for the website, as well as a look and feel that matches your charity’s brand values is crucial, as is selecting a suitable technology from the raft of platforms that charities use today to deliver website experiences.

Then considering the overall supporter journey and how they interact with your charity online needs to be factored in. Do they come to the website via other channels, like email, search or social media – all important elements of a charity’s web engagement in today’s world.
The mixing all those elements up, along with a good dose of testing and learning from your charity’s supporter base, will help to ensure your new charity website stands a good chance of success.

And of course, feel free to talk to them, experts in digital for charities.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.