As charities rely on donations and funding from volunteers in order to operate, there isn’t usually much money left over for creating a website, resulting in some pretty basic (and often unattractive) designs. In order to get visitors to the site to make donations, however, there are a number of elements that should be included in the web design:
• A mission, which is, essentially, a quick tagline that sums up what the charity is all about.
• Where donations will go, as people who want to make a difference to the lives of others like to know what their money is going to be used for.
• Photographs, as potential donators and sponsors will identify with the people in the photos used in a web design.
• Donate button, which is the most important element of any charity web design; it needs to be prominent and obvious in order to attract donators and sponsors to click.
• Donation history, but this is usually only relevant if the website is for a particular charitable event, as you can track how much money has been raised to date.
• Funding goals are always good to share with potential donators or sponsors (if you actually have one), as having a target gives people something tangible to aim for.
• Keep in touch information, as people who have signed up to be sponsors or have donated money will want to be kept up to date with how the charity is going; send them a newsletter every so often.
As you can see, each of the above elements are not difficult to include in even the most basic of web designs – when it is for charity, visitors are less likely to care about the attractiveness of the site and will instead be looking for all of the elements listed above.
