The Most Effective Designs for Nonprofit Website

Designing a website for a nonprofit agency is one of the more difficult projects that a design agency can undertake. An effective nonprofit website must raise awareness for a cause, create a sense of urgency around the problem, provoke an emotional response in the visitor, demonstrate the organization’s ability to address the issue, inspire the visitor to take immediate action, and accept donations through the website. The best nonprofit websites even give visitors a reason to return to the site, such as to sign up for upcoming events, read newly-published reports, etc. Your nonprofit can create a best-fit website for your community easily. All you need is to choose smart design tools.

So, how to design an effective non-profit website. Calm down, and take a deep breath, today, we will help you do this through 10 examples of the best and best non-profit websites.

 1. The SEEP Network

• The SEEP Network (short for “Small Enterprise Evaluation Project”) is an international business development organization dedicated to addressing the root causes of global poverty.
• With their assistance, hundreds of organizations worldwide are empowered to better serve their constituents in the fight to promote economic opportunities for the world’s poor.
• This commitment to solving global poverty is evident in SEEP’s web design. On their site, visitors are first greeted to a rolling slideshow featuring pictures of their constituents to help put a human face on their advocacy work.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• SEEP partnered with Morweb to build and maintain their web presence. Built on Morweb’s user-friendly nonprofit CMS, SEEP’s website was designed to last without needing to reach out to coding experts for every minor edit.
• Using one of Morweb’s themes crafted exclusively for international organizations, SEEP was able to seamlessly customize their site to best serve their constituents.
• SEEP’s Morweb site perfectly reflects their organization’s brand and communicates who they really are to new visitors. Whether this is your first time interacting with them online or are a returning member, it’s easy to get involved and join their mission to end poverty worldwide.

2. YMCA of San Luis Obispo County

• YMCA of San Luis Obispo County is a chapter of YMCA based in California.
• Dedicated to promoting physical fitness and community engagement, YMCA of San Luis Obispo County is committed to developing the mind, body, and spirit of all community members, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or age.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• YMCA of SLO County partners with Morweb to build and maintain their online presence.
• Morweb offers a number of themes for community associations like YMCA of SLO County, so it’s no wonder that they were able to create such an effective online home for their cause.
• By making the most of Morweb’s customizable features, YMCA of SLO County still benefits from the platform’s drag-and-drop, coding-free interface while also creating an online home that’s totally unique to their community.

3. Nonprofit Finance Fund

• The Nonprofit Finance Fund is a financial management consulting firm and lender that has been serving nonprofit organizations for over 30 years.
• Their website is clearly designed with their constituency in mind and features playful graphics of people from all walks of life. The Nonprofit Finance Fund is dedicated to sharing financial expertise with philanthropic organizations of all shapes, sizes, and missions, and their people-focused graphic design aesthetic makes that evident.
• We love that they carry their branded colors throughout their entire site. Each page is framed with orange headers and footers, as well as orange accents like icon buttons to help break up the page. This gives the entire site a cohesive air that helps build their organization’s online personality.
• By using friendly, warm design elements, the Nonprofit Finance Fund’s website does an excellent job of establishing their digital footprint without going overboard with flashy graphics and animations.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• The Nonprofit Finance Fund built their website using Drupal.
• Drupal is another content management system, but user be warned: Drupal has a steep learning curve and might not be appropriate for newcomers to nonprofit web design.
• Since Drupal is an open-source software that’s free to use, your team would have a lot of wiggle room in how you leverage this platform to create your organization’s website.

4.  American Friends of Covent Garden

• The American Friends of Covent Garden was founded in 1969 for an audience of opera and ballet lovers.
• This organization started as a way to foster the relationship between England and the United States. Since then, its focus has shifted to encouraging Americans in London to attend the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet, and bringing ballet performances from Covent Garden to the United States. They’ve also incorporated live streaming into their strategy to ensure performances are available to other international audiences.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• The American Friends of Covent Garden’s website was built using Morweb’s easy-to-use CMS platform.
• Morweb’s nonprofit-specific website design features make it easy to include all of the elements relevant to nonprofits, including opportunities to get involved.
• The built-in donation page features available through Morweb create a seamless donation process by allowing donors to give directly through American Friends of Covent Garden’s website without being redirected to a third party platform.
• Using Morweb’s nonprofit website features, it’s easy for organizations to maximize supporters’ involvement with their cause.
• The goal for the American Friends of Covent Garden is to attract new supporters. Their website makes this clear by incorporating design features like stunning imagery and convenient calls-to-action.
• The slideshow of high-quality images featured on the homepage banner attracts the eye of website visitors to highlight the beauty of the shows from Covent Garden.

 5. International Rhino Foundation

• The International Rhino Foundation is an animal advocacy group committed to supporting rhinoceros populations worldwide.
• Their mission is apparent as soon as you arrive on their homepage. Rhinoceros images are positioned front-and-center, and a call to action driving users to support these animals is placed at the center of the page.
• Because the bulk of their projects have pressing fundraising needs, the International Rhino Foundation’s website is designed to steer users toward giving. Right on the homepage, you can click a link that directs you to their online giving form.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• The International Rhino Foundation’s website was built using WordPress.
• Not only that, but their online fundraising forms were designed by Salsa Labs. These forms are embedded into their website and feature mobile-responsive design elements in order to support both mobile and desktop users.
• Using WordPress can be less intensive than working on a Drupal website. However, with WordPress, your design experience is really dependent upon what theme you choose, especially if it’s a lesser-used offering from a third-party developer.
• The bottom line is that choosing a WordPress website can give your organization a lot of freedom in how you design your web presence. But, your team needs to be careful to choose a theme that’s regularly updated and offers support services in order to ensure smooth implementation.

6. Fuel Church

• Fuel Church is a faith-based nonprofit organization based in Florida that tailors its outreach to young Christians.
• When visitors land on Fuel Church’s website, they’re met with an impressive moving graphic overlaid by a modern typographic logo. It’s immediately apparent that this congregation knows a thing or two about graphic design and uses this knowledge well.
• Fuel Church is undeniably stylish, and they make great use of layering text and photos in a way that makes their site feel seamless. This helps contribute to the sophisticated design of the site and certainly makes an impression on users.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• Fuel Church’s website was designed using CSS, a markup language like HTML or JavaScript.
• CSS gives your team greater power to create customized elements like the site’s moving background image.
• While Fuel Church’s website is stylish, it’s functionality is still pretty limited. If the organization wanted a more dynamic website that they could easily customize to function as they need it to, they might be better off choosing a more accessible CMS to see the job through.

7. Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

• The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is a hot air balloon festival that takes place in October.
• This fiesta invites guests to enjoy hundreds of colorful balloons as they fill the Albuquerque skies. Guests visit from around the world to enjoy the beautiful scenery and participate in family-friendly events.
• To market such a beautiful event, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta mirrors a balloon theme throughout their website. They provide important information that attendees need to know on the homepage and eye-popping graphics to get people excited for the event.
• The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta engages their website viewers by providing a countdown to the fiesta and upcoming event announcements on their homepage. They also feature an animated counting feature for the number of hot air balloons, guests attended, and pilots for the fiesta.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta® partners with Morweb to create and maintain their attractive and interactive website.
• Morweb’s image features and graphic animations helped the organization incorporate their branding and give site visitors the feeling of flying through the skies as they scroll through the website.
• Plus, Morweb’s form functionality enabled the organization to include a comprehensive, multi-page pilot application directly on their website. This way, pilots can apply to fly at the fiesta quickly and easily.
• What really makes this website stand out are the social media widgets included at the bottom of every page. The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta® includes their hashtag #BalloonFiesta in large letters while connecting website visitors to their Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, and Pinterest accounts.

 8. Thorn

• Thorn is a global nonprofit organization that tackles the growing problem of child trafficking and sexual exploitation.
• Thorn’s website is structured around sharing educational material about child sexual exploitation on the internet while providing tools to companies and law enforcement offices to help identify child sex abuse images.
• In order to tell the story of their beneficiaries, Thorn pairs emotional images and videos of children at play to make it simple for users to get up to speed about the realities of modern child exploitation.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• Thorn’s website was built using WordPress, a content management system like Morweb and Drupal.
• WordPress provides users with lots of features to creatively structure and build dynamic websites. However, like Drupal, WordPress takes time to master and isn’t for beginners.
• Although you can download WordPress website templates, your nonprofit will still need to spend lots of time building your site, and will need to hire a web developer to make major customizations.

9. Humane Society of the Treasure Coast

• The Humane Society of Treasure Coast (HSTC) was founded in 1955 in Florida.
• This nonprofit is an open admission shelter that accepts animals no matter their age, health, temperament, or breed. The HSTC focuses on taking in animals and nursing them to their healthiest state before helping them find new homes through adoption.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• This website was built on Morweb’s CMS platform and designed by working with the Morweb agency.
• Morweb’s CMS doesn’t require any coding knowledge, making it perfect for organizations like the HSTC who frequently update their site. This is especially helpful when it comes to featuring animals for adoption on their website.
• Morweb’s easy-to-use CMS is perfect for the website creation for organizations like the HSTC who are constantly updating their website due to frequently changing information and the addition of new events, animals or opportunities for support.
• The HSTC’s goal to get people involved is clear throughout their website design. They make use of website features such as event registration and ticketing, an online donation form, and an online store to enable these opportunities for support.

10. Uryadi’s Village

• Uryadi’s Village is a nonprofit that was founded in 2003 to help orphans and families struggling to survive in Ethiopia.
• Their mission to empower the local people to create an orphan village that is self-sustainable and thus not reliant on foreign aid is evident in their work with Wolayta Village, Ethiopia’s first self-sustainable orphanage.

How They Built This Nonprofit Website

• Uryadi’s Village used Squarespace to build their website. They made use of the CMS platform’s visual elements to create a compelling design and buttons to direct visitors to donation opportunities.
• Squarespace offers many features that can be utilized by nonprofits to create an attractive website. Because this organization is run by volunteers, Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for them to keep their website current. This CMS platform’s strict template styling allows volunteers to add new content without compromising the design of the website.

Conclusion

Whether you design a non-profit website using the method we’ve listed above or your own favorite design tool. Please always check and carefully consider your website to be the best and most effective. Have you chosen the best design tool for your website? Please comment below your experience in the non-profit website design process. At ENVZONE, we will always help you if you have any difficulties. Please contact us for your questions to be resolved. We will be happy for this.

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