Your non-profit web design is not just about making your business look appealing online, but it also impacts the overall professional image. A statistic reveals that responsive design and smart UX can boost the overall donations of a non-profit organization by an average of 126%.
For several visitors, their first encounter with your mission & vision contributes towards the overall impression of your non-profit organization. Your website design will, in fact, be the deciding factor for visitors to get involved in your mission.
| United States | |
| Total Giving: | $592.5 Billion |
| Foundation Giving: | $109.81 Billion (19%) |
| Bequests: | $45.84 Billion (8%) |
| Individual Giving: | $392.45 Billion (66%) |
| Corporate Giving: | $44.40 Billion (7%) |
| Global | |
| Total Charity Raised Across the Globe: | $2.3 Trillion |
Smart web design for non-profits isn’t just about the aesthetics, but is about the messaging and structure that will work collaboratively to invite action, such as volunteer sign-ups and donations. On the contrary, a poor web design will lead users to feel hesitant about being involved.
So, to increase inbound leads in the form of active donations and more volunteer sign-ups, here’s how smart web design can be of immense help. Read along till the end to learn about its importance, and what elements you prioritize for non-profits.
1. Adding Trust Signals
You ought to provide your users with the confidence to invest in your mission, and that’s possible if you are transparent with what you do and provide some legitimacy proof. More than 59% of the potential donors consider ‘trust’ as the most important factor to believe in the mission of a non-profit organization.
Non-profit organizations like ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) have already established trust signals on the footer of their website, ensuring better results. Some of the things you can achieve through web design to achieve the same are:
- Adding logos of your existing partners, financials, and security badges to your donation or volunteer sign-up page.
- Display testimonials of your past donors to new visitors to strengthen their decision to support your cause.
2. Streamlining the Donation Form
The donation forms that you add to your non-profit website must be short, without compromising on the important details you need. Potential donors don’t like to answer too many questions that they think are irrelevant to the cause, which will lead to more form abandonment.
Therefore, enable an efficient web design approach with the following parameters implemented for improving the chance of securing successful donations:
- Minimize the fields required and use concise labels. If you have a complex donation form that you want to be filled out by potential donors, prefer breaking it down into a multi-step process.
- Make that ‘Donate’ button stand out above all with contrasting colors or action-specific terms.
- Use stories, impact statements, or images in your form to establish an emotional connection with the donors. For instance, “Your $10 can ensure a homeless person sleeps warm throughout this winter.”
- User progress indicators are embedded in the donation form for indicating users how close they are to their goal.
3. Showing Past Work Impact
As a non-profit business, you must display your past works and their impacts on your website, as it can serve crucial functions. Primarily, you will be able to build trust, engage with supporters, demonstrate the level of your proficiency in the vision, and more.
While displaying your past work impact on a non-profit website, here are a few things that you can take into account:
- Showcase your completed projects on the website, alongside the results achieved from them. This will be an act of transparency from your side, which is crucial for earning the donor’s trust.
- Share success stories and highlight the visible progress on the national or global level, which will inspire more visitors to be part of your quest and sign up as volunteers or donors.
4. Achieving Consistency in Visual Branding
Your visual branding is what will help your users remember your non-profit after their first visit to the site. Therefore, you ought to make it count with cohesive and consistent branding, which will help you communicate the professionalism of your organization and build trust among users, crucial for mission-driven non-profit organizations.
With a consistent visual branding through your web design, your site visitors are more likely to remember your non-profit services, and will come back with either donations or to be a volunteer. Some of the smart web design elements you can integrate for achieving consistency in visual branding are:
- Clearly define your brand guidelines, including tone, color, logo usage rules, typography, and others.
- Make sure the logo you use across the web pages is consistent and placed in the same position.
- For all the recurring pages on your non-profit website, you must use standardized templates.
- Establish a consistent grid system and structure for your webpages.
- All icons, video and images must adhere to your branding guidelines.
5. Adding Engagement-Driven CTAs
One of the things that makes a non-profit website design stand out is the strategic positioning of CTAs. No visitor wants to keep guessing about what they do after reading through your mission statement on the website.
Whether your primary goal is to recruit volunteers, receive donations, or build an email list, your web design should clearly and prominently state it across the targeted pages. Some of the things you can keep in mind are:
- Place the primary CTA above the fold.
- Repeat the same CTA on the site header.
- Ensure the CTA buttons are integrated with clear placement and strong contrast.
- Add an emotionally-driven call-to-action button.
- Do not add any of the vague action labels such as “Click Here” or “Submit”.
- Your top navigation should have “Donation” and “Volunteer Sign-Up” links.
- Minimize the number of clicks for users to finally take an action.
6. Prioritizing Mobile UX
Mobile users account for more than 60% of all non-profit website traffic, proving the efficacy of a responsive and smart web design. When you have a well-designed donation page, you can expect around 3x the volunteer sign-ups and 62% of more completed donations.
Your mobile-optimized non-profit website must load quickly and present the content in small yet understandable segments. Beyond that, the action buttons, icons, or links must be large enough for users to locate them easily. Some of the other mobile UX elements you can implement for your non-profit website are:
- Ensure your website loads faster on mobile devices with varying screen sizes.
- Break the site content into short sections for seamless readability.
- Mobile navigation must be sticky and easily accessible.
- Enable the autofill feature for most of the possible form fields.
- Embed volunteer sign-up and donation forms directly onto your website, and avoid redirecting users to a third-party platform.
7. Implementing Web Accessibility Parameters
More than 25% of people in the United States live with some form of disability! Therefore, a non-profit website must be accessible to ensure people with physical challenges can seamlessly connect with the mission.
According to Simpalm, a web development agency for non-profits, enabling smart web design is crucial to achieving accessibility for your non-profit website. It is a vital step for you to reach a wider audience, adhere to legal compliance, and secure donations. Some of the design parameters you need to consider are:
- Ensuring a minimum of a 4:5:1 ratio between your site background and text. Make sure you don’t rely just on color for conveying the information. Instead, you can combine using asterisks and icons for added contrast.
- Use adequate white spacing and streamline the visual elements for creating efficient visual hierarchy.
- Add alt-text for the images and transcripts for the videos, enabling screen readers to help visually-impaired people understand your non-profit services.
- Enable keyboard navigation for most of your site functions.
Conclusion
Remember, when you are a non-profit business owner, it is your website that acts as the impactful tool to entice people to donate, become your volunteers, or simply trust your mission. However, you ought to make sure the digital face of your non-profit organization is designed in a way that can encourage conversions!
From implementing clear CTAs and mobile-first design to building emotional relationships and embedded donation forms, a smart web design approach can help you achieve your end-goals. Partner with a top expert non-profit website development agency, and ensure each part of your website conveys your vision and works toward turning people’s interests into action.
