Just like fundraising trends, website design aesthetics ebb and flow, and your website can become outdated over time. Your organization might want to consider conducting a site refresh to breathe new life into your website.
To ensure you’re making the most of your website, it’s helpful to review other successful nonprofit websites and see the strategies they’re using to connect with audiences.
To inspire your nonprofit’s site refresh, we’ve gathered several examples of unique, impactful site designs. Let’s dive into these effective nonprofit website examples (and be sure to review Kanopi’s roundup of the best nonprofit websites for more powerful nonprofit website examples):
1. Feeding America
Interactive elements on your nonprofit’s website can increase awareness of your cause and encourage visitors to consider your organization’s work in a new way. For example, Feeding America’s interactive food insecurity map allows viewers to visually identify areas with high food insecurity.
This map brings the issue of food insecurity to life for those who haven’t faced the problem first-hand. Individuals can view their home state and even zoom in to see their county or closest food bank. The map allows viewers to search food insecurity rates based on several years of data, race and ethnicity, and age groups.
The map demonstrates how widespread food insecurity reaches across the country and shows how people from all walks of life are affected. Supporters can access data about their hometowns and communities, and potentially be driven to donate because of this newfound understanding.
Integrating an interactive element into your website can encourage potential supporters to dig deeper into your nonprofit’s mission to learn about your cause and how your organization works to make a tangible difference.
2. Doctors Without Borders
The Doctors Without Borders website establishes trust with supporters by making information about how the organization uses donations easily accessible. The homepage immediately informs viewers of the organization’s mission alongside statistics about the nonprofit’s work.
The “Our Reach” and “How we use funds” tabs beside the mission statement are easily labeled for supporters to identify. The large font choices allow for high visibility and pull in viewer attention. The website also includes a permanent, fixed footer with a breakdown of where the organization directs its funding.
By highlighting this important information across the site, new and dedicated donors will learn about how Doctors Without Borders is growing its efforts. If potential donors view the homepage, they would quickly learn how many countries the projects cover, how many consultations have been completed, and how many patients have been admitted to the organization’s facilities.
The toggle feature between the “Our reach” and “How we use funds” tabs also provides easy access to information for current donors. If engaged donors visit the website, they could be inspired to learn that a vast majority of donations go directly to helping those in need. This could reassure donors that their contributions are making a difference.
Optimize your homepage impact by using easily-comprehensible visuals or statistics to highlight your nonprofit’s mission, values, and work. This tactic can help you captivate more donors with your homepage, engage them with information, and inspire them to donate.
3. GA Gives
The GA Gives campaign for #GivingTuesday boosted donations dramatically in 2019 when they implemented gamification dashboards on their web pages. GA Gives gathered several community sponsors like Coca-Cola and Mercedes to support local nonprofits. The campaign used website features like giving leaderboards, Power Hours, and prizes to generate excitement and online donations.
Some sponsors matched gifts for organizations, and the donations raised were updated on challenge boards organized by sponsor and cause area. For example, the Coca-Cola matching fund challenge highlighted the number of donations made toward women’s empowerment nonprofits. The live-updated challenge board showed donors how their contributions were maximized by the matching gifts from Coca-Cola, encouraging more giving.
Mercedes hosted power hours during the campaign where nonprofits could win an additional $2,000 for their organization by having the most unique donors within the determined hour. Displaying the winning organizations on the leaderboards encouraged participation within the community and inspired donors to continue giving.
When refreshing your nonprofit’s website, you can use challenges and donation deadlines to motivate donors to give sooner than later. The visual impact of live updated donation tallies can make individuals feel like part of a larger community and make their contributions feel more substantial. Try integrating challenges or donor tallies on your site to guide supporters to your donation page.
4. Boys & Girls Clubs of America
The Boys & Girls Clubs of America website welcomes a variety of users on its homepage with a simple drop-down menu. On the scrolling carousel, the phrase “I am a(n)” with the accompanying dropdown menu provides pathways for different types of users like children, parents, teachers, and supporters.
This option on the homepage allows visitors to easily find the content that most appeals to them. Whether it’s a child looking for a local program, or an alumnus looking to get involved, users are taken directly to pages with information tailored to them.
As most nonprofits are service-based, this type of menu tool can help create more navigable sites that can be used by supporters and beneficiaries alike. Consider adding labels or a menu for different users on your site for ease of use.
5. Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy
The Golden Gates National Parks Conservancy employs the same vibrant colors and aesthetics from their parks on their website. The open design layout paired with the local imagery immediately captivates viewers and pulls them into the website.
During the recent website refresh for the conservancy, the organization focused on accessible updates for each park it serves, such as information about trail closures, maps, and upcoming events. Because of the wide variety of park and website visitors, the detailed menu created ]improved navigation based on user search intent.
Using Drupal, the website development team created a planning and development strategy to guide the refresh process. By creating a roadmap for the project, they were able to keep user intent at the forefront of their designs and clearly define the key funnels for conversion.
Be sure to create a detailed development plan for your website refresh to stay on track when designing and implementing sections that guide donors to give. This is especially important if you’re migrating your website to a new content management system.
Before diving into your next website refresh, be sure to explore examples of current websites and look for trends that help guide a variety of user journeys. But make sure those user journeys align with what your audiences need and how they move through your site! A well-designed user experience can raise nonprofit website conversion rates by 200%, so take care to strategize for your website’s upgrade. Ask your steady users for feedback on your site, review competitor websites, design trends, and case studies to create a plan for optimizing your nonprofit’s website.
About the Author
Anne Stefanyk
As Founder and CEO of Kanopi Studios, Anne helps create clarity around project needs, and turns client conversations into actionable outcomes. She enjoys helping clients identify their problems, and then empowering the Kanopi team to execute great solutions.
Anne is an advocate for open source and co-organizes the Bay Area Drupal Camp. When she’s not contributing to the community or running her thoughtful web agency, she enjoys yoga, meditation, treehouses, dharma, cycling, paddle boarding, kayaking, and hanging with her nephew.