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.

Adam is a besom broom maker, spoon carver and woodturner. I recently overhauled his website so he can sell his carved spoons through an online shop.

E-Commerce on a budget

The website uses a shopping cart called WP E-Commerce which enables customers to buy online and for Adam to receive payment via PayPal. This plugin is free although for about £20 you can uprade to a Gold Cart version with more capabilities. This is a small price to pay for a shopping cart which has, on the whole, been easy to install. (Continue reading…)

My latest commission — RSA Comment — is a website where you can read opinion pieces, watch topical videos, comment on them and even submit your own writing. The site carefully follows the corporate branding of the RSA. It uses WordPress as its underlying CMS, has a complex home page layout and multiple columns on all pages. This was one of my most complex website designs so far – and a pleasure to work on.

(Continue reading…)

Next Door is a nonprofit organisation in the US that provides intervention and prevention services for domestic violence. They wanted a new website and wanted it quickly. This is what we built together using WordPress.

We decided, to keep costs down and to enable the site to be built quickly, to use a premium pre-built WordPress theme called Allure by StudioPress. The Allure theme is well designed and comes with a handy slideshow on the home page to display featured content, and room for adverts in the right column. It cost US$60.

Next Door then asked a graphic artist to redesign the look of the theme, changing the images and colour scheme; after which I changed the theme’s code to match the new style.

Once WordPress had been installed and configured and the theme implemented. I gave the organisation advice, helping them to understand how to use WordPress to enter their own content, pages and news.

» Visit the Next Door website

My latest website is unusual, in that it was built for a business rather than a nonprofit organisation. The Change Management Group is a business consultancy that’s based in the UK but has an international reach.

WordPress MU

The Change Management Group wanted to use WordPress MU (Multi User) which is a version of WordPress that can host multiple blogs. WordPress MU can even be used to run communities of thousands of blogs. 99% of its code is identical to WordPress but that extra 1% enables you to do so much more. Although the site doesn’t currently host multiple separate blogs, the functionality is there for when they require it.

The WP-Remix premium WordPress theme

The Change Management Group also wanted me to install WP-Remix which is a premium (meaning you pay $75) theme for WordPress. It offers a way to get around the usual layout restrictions in WordPress by offering you a choice of templates for each page you edit. You want an extra column on your home page? You want a list of staff with thumbnail photos next to their details? Just choose the appropriate template. WP-Remix can be a bit buggy at times but the flexibility it offers makes it worth considering.

There are definite advantages to using a premium theme to build a website: the client can visualise what they’re going to get; premium themes are usually better coded than free themes; and they cut down on the design and coding work required if the site was to be entirely custom built; so you can jump straight into customisation.

Visit The Change Management Group’s new website.

I was commissioned to complete an already half-built website for ARISE. They’re a nonprofit organisation in the US that sells training materials and courses for at-risk youth. The visual design was mostly in place but the shopping cart wasn’t working properly and there were a lot of formatting, navigation and other problems. E-commerce is something that only a minority of charities’ websites are set up to do so this has been an interesting project to work on.

(Continue reading…)

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…)