Non-Profit Website With Donation And Volunteer Journeys

Non-profit websites are usually built as a stack of brochures with a donate button at the bottom, and then the donate button is the only part anyone uses. That is a design failure rather than a content one.

So the site was structured around what someone arrived to do: read about a programme, donate, or offer time. Each has its own entry point in the navigation and its own confirmation page, because people who want to give money should not have to read a strategy document first. Programme content is staff-editable, which matters when the people writing it are programme managers rather than a marketing team.

The most consequential decision was how little we designed around donations. A donation flow that asks for a card number, an address and a phone number will lose people. Ours asks for an amount and an email, and the receipt carries the rest.

Accessibility was tested as a requirement rather than a review stage: keyboard-only navigation through the donation flow, screen-reader labels on the form fields, and a contrast check against the brand colours before any page was signed off.

Handover included a written guide for programme staff on publishing content safely, which is what actually determines whether the site stays current.