How to design an effective charity website

An effective website places the charity's core aim and message front and centre. Every page should reinforce the charity's purpose and highlight achievements. A clear and compelling mission statement grabs visitors' attention, instilling purpose and encouraging further exploration.  Communicating the mission clearly also improves SEO and gets your message to more people. We brought our content and SEO expertise to our partnership with the Blue Cross, which not only not only saw a 500% increase in traffic from search and social platforms, but also achieved number one Google positions for several keywords, such as ‘pet advice cat’ and ‘rehoming dog’.

Donating to your charity should be quick and easy. This means prominently featuring donation calls to action, offering multiple payment methods, and streamlining the process to as few clicks as possible. Additionally, it is crucial to transparently communicate how the donations are used, showing the impact through success stories, testimonials, and visuals.

We redesigned The Children’s Society’s donation journey to make it frictionless and as simple as possible, which brought about an astounding 1322% increase in the donation completion rate, generating much more funding for the children who need it most. See the design we used below:

Charities often cater to two distinct user groups: those directly benefiting from the services, and those supporting through donations or other means. A well-crafted content strategy acknowledges this diversity, tailoring the website to meet the unique goals of each group.

Service users need to be able to easily find information, resources, and where to get further guidance. Supporters need to be engaged with success stories, impact metrics, and donation and volunteer opportunities. In all our charity work, we provide user-specific content and intuitive navigation in the information architecture, ensuring all user groups can complete their journeys swiftly.

Charities need a recognisable brand presence both online and offline. Well-defined brand guidelines help maintain consistency in visual elements, tone of voice, and messaging. This fosters brand identity, making the charity instantly recognisable and memorable to users. Strong branding encourages repeat visits, cultivates supporter loyalty, and facilitates sharing of the charity's message through word-of-mouth and social media.

We collaborated with the Teenage Cancer Trust to create a digital application of their new visual language. Their logo is very recognisable, so we made use of the red and blue colour palette, bold sans-serif font, and sharp rectangles in our designs. We combined these with a brushed handwritten font and bright yellow, pink and green to foster a youthful, welcoming and approachable atmosphere.

As a charity expands its reach and impact, the website must keep up. Having a content governance model in place ensures your website can grow with you and will ensure that it doesn’t become a labyrinth of outdated information. Regular updates and audits are necessary to remove obsolete content, simplify navigation, and provide a cohesive user experience. By keeping the website dynamic and relevant, charities can effectively communicate progress, initiatives, and evolving needs, engaging supporters and attracting ongoing support.

In our partnerships with some of the UK's leading charities, we regularly provide training on how to produce the best content for their brand and implement governance strategies to keep things consistent and relevant.