Our not for profit organisation clients are among our favourites to work with. They’re value-driven and dedicated, and we always get the warm and fuzzies from working on such compassionate projects.
From working hand in hand with not for profit organisations, we’ve learned a thing or two about catering to their unique needs. Besides enjoying the close partnership required from working on really deep projects, we’ve found a lot of commonalities connecting these great organisations.
And so, here’s our list of 5 must-haves for a not for profit website.
1. Knowledge of your demographic
Most organisations have some idea of who they’re targeting with their branding, and some are very broad. Regardless of who you’re looking for, brand messaging is extremely important, and the language you use to speak to your audience matters.
To really connect with the language you use, first, you need a deep understanding of your ideal audience. To get that, we use user personas. User personas are an excellent tool for building your brand voice; they inform many aspects of design, language, and messaging.
Here’s a blog about utilising user personas to construct a brand voice.
We had the pleasure of working with Fearless Women, a wonderful organisation that tackles the challenges that girls and young women face in the ACT. Their brand voice speaks to the girls they want to reach and help through the harrowing trials they’re experiencing.
No matter who you’re hoping to connect with, there’s a voice, language, and tone to best reach them. And that starts with knowing who they are, what they do, what they feel, and how they will best engage with your message.
2. Inspiring visuals and branding
One thing connecting most not for profit organisations is the need to inspire, engage, and emotionally connect to audiences. They often ask for extraordinary things from people like donating time or money and discussing uncomfortable topics. These extraordinary asks are not beyond the capacity of the generous folk they hope to connect with. Still, many people hesitate to take a step without being inspired and emotionally engaged.
So, the branding used by not for profit organisations is crucially important.
The user personas are really useful here too. A brand should connect with your audience and reflect them so they feel like they’re a part of your organisation before they even learn what you do. The best brands are recognisable and straightforward, but the best branding for a not for profit is also inspiring and motivating.
3. Accessibility and inclusivity
We make all our websites as accessible as the technology allows, but these simple steps are critical for a not for profit organisation.
The world is full of wonderfully unique people; wouldn’t you know it, they all engage with content differently. The list of accessibility and inclusivity design steps that we undertake is extensive, but here are the bare bones of it:
Language
With the mix of different cultures, languages, ages, and education that you’re presented with in your audience, you need to use accessible language. Screen readers and translation support are a must, but all content should be presented at an 8th-grade reading level. Inclusive language is also key to keeping people on board with a message of kindness and compassion.
Colours
Vision impairment is a really common occurrence and is a significant consideration for any form of design. We use contrast assessment tools and design graphical elements with shapes and other non-colour indicators to be inclusive to everyone.
Navigation
While a beautifully unique website is a great way to stand out and catch people’s attention, if it comes at a cost to ease of use and simple navigation, it’s not worth it. Webpages should be tab-navigation friendly and be laid out how users expect them to be. Frustration and confusion poison the inspiration and engagement we strive for.
Accessibility and inclusivity are deeply ingrained into our process, so it is naturally involved in every project we work on. But if you’re designing your own website to follow a set of guidelines, then the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines should be your first stop.
4. Stakeholder considerations
Every not for profit understands that ensuring both internal and external stakeholders are satisfied is just about the best de-stressor around.
When it comes to satisfying stakeholders, accountability is a large concern. Websites are commonly a hub for stakeholders to see the organisation succeeding with its mission. Stakeholders look for resources like published annual reports, strategy statements, and updated ethics declarations.
For grant acquisition, donations, online discourse, and volunteer registration, the organisation’s website is the funnel and focal point, and it needs to meet the expectations of internal and external stakeholders.
5. Captivating storytelling
In web design, we aren’t writing a novel or an article, yet we’re still telling a story. It’s a story that we love to learn about from you, translate into HTML, and amplify to your audience.
Since people don’t buy a website to read on the train, and it doesn’t sit on their bedside table in a neat (or messy) stack, we need to use other methods to get the wonderful story of you out there. We do it with User Experience elements. By structuring your website with content and navigational elements, we aim to bring people on a user journey.
This process is, in my opinion, the best way to take the people who, through your language and branding, are already sympathetic to your cause and really inspire them to engage with your organisation. I wrote a blog about the whole process, which you can read here.
Is your not for profit website giving you what you need?
We love working with not for profit organisations, partly because of the reasons I mentioned above but also because of the challenges involved in catering to their unique needs. If you find that your website isn’t really engaging and inspiring your audience, or if you’re losing people because of inexperienced language choices, or maybe you just aren’t getting your message out there, then we’d love to chat about helping you out.
At Studio Sondar, we work with value-driven clients on projects driven by passion. If that’s you, we’d love for you to book a chat with us.
