4 Critical Reasons a Strategic Website is a Must for Nonprofits
Here at Merrygood, we’ve had the privilege of working with several nonprofits, including A Glimmer of Hope, Carrying To Term, and Waterloo Greenway, on the design and construction of their websites. Despite having unique missions and needs for their websites, these projects have shown us and our clients the importance of a professionally designed website for nonprofits and the benefits it can provide them. Here’s why a professionally designed website is worth prioritizing in the nonprofit sector:
“We believe that a professional website is one of the most powerful tools for communicating our mission and vision to our supporters and other stakeholders.”
1. Communicate the mission
As we’ve mentioned before, websites are an opportunity for communication for any business, and this is never more true than for mission-driven organizations, like nonprofits. A website provides the space to really explore what a nonprofit organization’s purpose is, and a professional design team can weave this mission throughout the site for an experience that is much more immersive than just a paragraph on an “About Us” page.
“As an educational resource, our website provides reliable information quickly which has helped equip doctors when presenting diagnoses and making referrals, and allowed patients to leave feeling informed and supported.”
2. Provide access to information
Whether it’s financial documents for stakeholders, program results, or educational materials, nonprofits often have a lot of technical content to share with their audience, and while it’s important, too much data can be overwhelming for viewers if plopped on a page. A professional design team can find ways of delivering this information in a visually appealing and more digestible format. They will also know the best place for this information to live on the website, on a path that’s easy for your audience to find, creating a positive user experience.
“With Merrygood as our professional design partner, we were able to turn our development vision into a great user experience, by offering a variety of donation options while easily communicating the benefits of each.”
3. Development growth
Development is a necessity for most nonprofits and a website allows them to reach a much larger audience of potential donors at a more efficient cost than phone calls, direct mail, or event marketing. Not only does it increase general awareness, but a professionally designed website can also provide the ability for online donations and an integrated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system for follow-up.
4. Marketing Experts
Even if a nonprofit has an internal marketing team, working with an outside agency allows them to expand their skillset and helps them see opportunities or problems they may be too close to notice. Since you can’t be an expert in everything, having a talented external team of information architects, strategists, copywriters, SEO experts, and designers, when you build your website is an invaluable resource.
While a professionally designed website is an investment, we believe it’s essential for nonprofits looking to reach the next level in terms of funding, awareness, and talent acquisition. It doesn’t have to break the budget either, you should always ask if an agency has any special nonprofit rates or discounts.