Design serves content, not the other way around. A beautiful website that’s hard to navigate or slow to load isn’t doing its job. The best nonprofit websites are clean, uncluttered, and let the content breathe. Resist the temptation to fill every pixel — white space is your friend.
Navigation should be obvious. Keep your main navigation to five to seven items. Use plain language — “What we do” is clearer than “Our impact framework.” Make your most important actions (Donate, Volunteer, Contact) prominent and easy to find from any page. A sticky navigation bar that stays visible as users scroll is genuinely useful.
Images matter. Use real photography of your work, your people, and your community wherever possible. Generic stock photography undermines credibility — if your images don’t look like your organisation, visitors will notice. Every image needs alt text for accessibility and SEO.
Accessibility is built in, not bolted on. Sufficient colour contrast, keyboard navigation, proper heading structure, alt text, captions on video — these aren’t extras. They’re requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act and they make your site better for everyone. We’ve written a full guide to web accessibility (Inclusive by Design) that covers this in detail.
Performance is part of the experience. A site that takes more than three seconds to load loses roughly half its visitors. Compress images, minimise unnecessary scripts, use decent hosting, and test your speed regularly with Google PageSpeed Insights. Core Web Vitals (Google’s performance metrics) are now a ranking factor — a fast site ranks higher than a slow one, all else being equal.
