Nonprofit web design

Below are a few examples of websites I’ve developed and the stories behind them. If your charity or association’s website needs a redesign, if you’d like a healthcheck of your current website or want to discuss getting your first site up-and running, please contact me.

I designed the website for the Council for Voluntary Services in Hounslow. This is an independent body that supports, advises and represents all voluntary groups in the London Borough of Hounslow.

Their old website was just a single page with a few logos. They wanted something better, designed to match their colour scheme, with far more content. Importantly, they must be able to edit the content themselves and publish regular news items.

I designed the website using WordPress as the content management system (CMS). WordPress is an easy enough tool for the staff at Hounslow CVS to use to edit their website’s pages and posts. (Continue reading…)

I was commissioned to redesign the website of The Irish Support and Advice Service. The result is a small, brochure-style website.

The website was built around WordPress so that the charity can edit their own content. I designed the theme from scratch, mostly avoiding typical Irish colours. (Continue reading…)

I designed the website for Hillingdon Refugee Support Group. It was built using WordPress as the content management system so the charity can easily add their own pages and text and photos. I designed the theme from scratch.

Notice how well this website has been designed for SEO? That stands for Search Engine Optimisation and means that your website is likely to get well-rated by search engines like Google. What SEO techniques have ben used on this website? (Continue reading…)

The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust’s candle tributes website is one of the more interesting, worthwhile and challenging web projects I’ve worked on.

The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, an organisation that I’ve worked with on and off for the last eight years, commissioned me to design a new mini-website. The site gives women (and their partners) who have lost a child to an ectopic pregnancy, opportunity to light a candle and leave a message in remembrance. (Continue reading…)

On my last day as Baptcare’s website and Intranet editor, my final task was to create a landing page for their charity golf event.

Here’s the result, designed and coded with valid HTML within only a few hours. The design has simple, attractive typography using Baptcare’s corporate colours. However, this landing page looks nothing like the usual template used elsewhere on the Baptcare website, it’s a complete one-off. Baptcare’s usual template is too restrictive, not eye-catching enough to use as a landing page.

What is a landing page? Usually it’s defined as a page that visitors will arrive at directly via an advert or link on another website. A landing pages might not be linked to from an organisation’s own site at all, only from banners or adverts on external sites or from ads on postcards or other printed media. (Continue reading…)

Baptcare is large nonprofit organisation providing care services in the state of Victoria, Australia. With over 760 staff based in several dozen locations, working in very different projects, good internal communication is vital. That’s why their Intranet is so important to them.

An Intranet is like a website except that it’s only available to people working within the organisation. It’s used to share information internally rather than to publicly promote the organisation’s services. Recently I redesigned Baptcare’s Intranet home page. (Continue reading…)

Did you know that Melbourne has the biggest Greek population outside of Greece? That’s why I was commissioned to design the Greek Care website by Fronditha, a charity in Victoria, Australia. The website, which launched this week, provides information and advice about the care of elderly Greek people.

The website was developed using the free and open source WordPress content management system to make it easy for non-web designers to publish and edit pages.

I’d like to tell you how that project was tackled, and how various plugins were installed to add extra functionality to the basic CMS. (Continue reading…)

Caring Choices is a nationwide initiative to help shape future policy on long-term care for older people. More than 700 older people, carers and others were invited to share their experiences and views at events and on the website throughout 2007.

The Caring Choices website is based on WordPress, a free and open source content management system. It enables The King’s Fund and its partners to publish pages and articles onto their website; and for visitors to the site to leave their comments; and for visitors to subscribe to receive new articles. (Continue reading…)