When thinking about your budget for updates to your nonprofit website design, you want to ensure the changes you make will result in a positive impact for your organization. The goal of a nonprofit website is to promote your mission, provide resources and content to raise awareness about your nonprofit, and encourage visitors to support or get involved in your cause.

Below are a few areas of the site to pay attention to in order to engage your visitors most effectively and make your website a valuable communication resource:

1. Tell your story

When a new visitor first comes to your site, you want to be able to connect with them right away. In order to do this, they need to be able to understand who you are and what your overall goal is as an organization. Consider summarizing your mission, vision for the future, and key values on the homepage or a nearby subpage. Another great element to incorporate is case studies, which can add an emotional element and better describe your community impact.

2. Optimize the Site for Mobile

A majority of site traffic (estimated around 60%) now comes from a mobile device. A site that is not well optimized can frustrate visitors and donors who cannot click on certain links or properly view the site content. Your mobile design should incorporate large, easy-to-read text, a vertical design, and minimal navigation elements so the page does not appear overcrowded.

3. Integrate Multiple Calls to Action

In order to best determine the effectiveness of your website, you want to take a look at what your visitors are doing on the site. A call to action can serve as a reminder to your visitor to engage with you by giving you more information. Some examples of good calls to action would be reminders to donate, sign up for your newsletter, or register for an event you are hosting.

4. Ease of Navigation and Well-Organized Content

Your navigational menu is one area that can easily guide or frustrate your users. If a visitor has to go through multiple tabs and pages on the site they will become frustrated. Try to break down navigation into easy to understand sections such as Who We Are, Events, News, Resources/Case Studies, and Donate.

5. Choose Imagery that Appeals to Emotion

Well-chosen imagery on the site will help to create a better visual representation of your organization. Choose images wisely, and try to find images that showcase your impact or relate to your cause. Overcrowding the site with too many images will just slow down the load speed, so be selective in choosing the appropriate areas related to your content to place these on the site.

6. Utilize Social Media

Social media is an effective tool to engage your users. For example, posting your Twitter feed to the site encourages people to discuss topics or issues that are relevant to your industry. Social media is also a great way to share the content you create and grow your audience. You can also consider incorporating visual elements onto the site, such as videos created for YouTube, in order to integrate new types of media.

7. Choose the Proper CMS System

Content management is crucial in the nonprofit space since new resources and documents will be created and added to the site, and you need to be able to easily keep track of donor and subscriber information. In order to keep the site well organized and easily manage data, you should consider integrating a CMS system that allows you to easily manage, edit, organize, and share content.

8. Create an Event Calendar

Besides donations, another large goal for a nonprofit organization is to encourage people to be more involved with their cause, whether that be through volunteering or attending events. Adding an events calendar on the site will give your users an organized place where they can look for opportunities to engage with your organization on a monthly basis.