In our effort to help keep the internet beautiful, we’ve written several articles about website design. These articles range from creating a great nonprofit website to choosing the best web design company for your business. In this article, we’ve compiled tips to aid you in creating a website that is worthy of your supporters.

Here’s what we will cover:

• Make your mission obvious
• Engage your supporters
• Ensure your site is donor-friendly
• Have an easy volunteer process
• Include visual storytelling
• Design a responsive website
• Connect your website with social media

Ok, let’s get started.

1. Make Your Mission Obvious

One of the first things a nonprofit organization does is construct a mission statement. So, when donors and supporters reach your site, ensure your mission is obvious. Does your organization empower wounded warriors? Include photos and testimonials from veterans. Are you an advocate for the protection of wildlife? Showcase those adorable baby elephant shots. The purpose isn’t to inundate people with your mission, but rather to ensure your organization’s brand identity is clear. Especially for first-time visitors to your website.

Check out this example of nonprofit organization website from Ballin’ For Peace. Is their mission apparent?

2. Engage Your Supporters

Many of our articles mention the short amount of time you have to grab your audiences’ attention. And nonprofit website design is no different. In fact, you have less than 12 seconds to attract your supporters’ attention once they land on your website. So, make it compelling. Motivate them to help you make a difference.

Use the status of celebrities to help you make your point. Ballin’ For Peace does a great job of having music artists create songs about stopping the violence in our communities.

3. Ensure Your Site is Donor-Friendly

Second to its mission, fundraising is a top priority for any nonprofit. Therefore, it’s important to make it easy for people to donate from the website. Have a look at ULOC Tampa. A good standard: make your call-to-action donations button highly visible. Additionally, it should be easily assessable on every page.

4. Have An Easy Volunteer Process

Creating a great nonprofit website includes being thoughtful to those that help get tough jobs done. Most volunteers work hard for nonprofit organizations as if it were a paying job. So, it should go without saying that the volunteer sign up process shouldn’t be job in itself.

Not only should be sign up process be easy, but finding volunteering opportunities on your site should be a breeze. In fact, there’s actually volunteer software that designed to help nonprofits find and retain volunteers.

5. Include Visual Storytelling

While a picture is worth a thousand words, videos speaks volumes. As such, you should use compelling videos to captivate your supporters and expand on the story of your mission. In addition to using videos to tell your organization’s story, build a website that’s also engaging.

A well-branded website ensures a cohesive experience across all platforms. Plus, it helps in establishing trust. So, when supporters and donors see your logo and style, they instantly know it’s your nonprofit they’re connecting with.

With this in mind, when used correctly, videos have the power of impact more so than just words. And you’re need all the power you can muster to encourage people to donate and support your organization.

Ballin’ For Peace gets a gold star in visual storytelling because of their testimonial videos.

6. Design a Responsive Website

The types of devices used to view web content is growing rapidly. So, don’t count on your supporters viewing your website on a computer. Instead, ensure that it’s optimized for mobile readiness and grab donor’s attention on any device.

Another thing that makes a great nonprofit website is being conscientious of your image sizes. If they’re too large, visitors will have to unnecessarily scroll to view the intended information. Also, text should be larger enough so that it’s easy to read on small screens.

Using the correct type of navigation is also critical for responsive websites. Websites view on mobile phones have a limited amount of space. Thus, you should simplify your navigation so that only the key information is available.

7. Connect Your Website With Social Media

After creating a great nonprofit website, you not only want to obtain supporters and donors, but also increase visibility. One way to achieve this is to add social media icons and links to your website. These links will automate the sharing possess of your content. Additionally, they drive traffic to your website and increase your brand awareness and reach.

Take note how Ballin’ For Peace keeps social sharing prominently displayed in a global position on their website.

At Envisager Studio, we understand the various challenges that many nonprofit organizations face. We are expert nonprofit website designers and we would love to design your website. Call us today at (858) 874-6528 or get in touch with our team for a quote designed specially for nonprofits.