One could throw a (virtual) dart at any Google listing for a website developer, and nearly all will claim to offer charity website design—just like they would be happy to design a website for a clothing shop, real estate firm, or widget manufacturer. You know, it’s “just business,” right?
From homeless health care to child development; HIV/AIDS services and education to housing and legal for the poor; environmental awareness to college entry preparation assistance. As well as domestic violence centers, harm reduction education and grief counseling, medical and technical education centers and services, children & immigrant services, and more. And most of these client organizations have been small to medium in size, with very limited budgets. (Yet, somehow, we almost always find a website solution within the clients’ budget and expectations!)
As we pointed out in About Us, affordable and easy-to-use website design and development for charitable nonprofit organizations is what our agency specializes in—as well as web presence upkeep for charity websites that are indeed charitable in their mission*. Our philosophy is that for us to do our best work, we must believe in the service, mission, or product of our charity partners. Charity website design and development is our passion—the nonprofit sector is our community. Like you, we’re tasked with helping to make our world a better place.
Yes, there is a difference! That said, charitable nonprofit websites do share some primary goals with that of its commercial counterpart. Both should be:
But where the separation occurs is that the commercial website targets the purchaser of the item—who is almost always (except for gift items) the end-user of the purchase. Therefore, when one is designing a website for the for-profit arena, they are speaking to that one audience: the purchaser/end-user.
One message is for the product purchaser (i.e.: the donor of the item or service) and the other message is to the receiver of the item or service (i.e.: the group in need of the item—the client). And, this sort of dual-branding can be a challenge.
In short, the charity website’s end-user—the client (e.g.: patient or victim of poverty and/or circumstances), their “user experience” (UE/UX) will not be buyer’s satisfaction or even return on social investment (ROsI), but on when, where, and how to obtain the product/service and how quickly they can access it. (Which, by the way, is also import to the buyer/funder who considers overall user experience for clients as a reasonable ROsI.)
The donor to the charity’s website, however, will most likely need to be approached differently. And that’s where Dot Org Web Works shines.
To learn more on this subject, please see: Nonprofit Versus For-profit Websites.
* Sorry, we do not work on political or religious causes.
