Do you own or manage a nonprofit organization? Are you looking to expand your audience reach and engage people in an exciting manner while achieving the objectives of your organization? Then you need a nonprofit website!
While an organization’s website shouldn’t aim at selling any product or service to its visitors, such a website must still be well-designed with a convincing layout to ensure people trust and subscribe to their cause, compelling them to take action.
Thankfully, creating an amazing nonprofit organization website shouldn’t be a herculean task. You can easily create an engaging, well-designed, and compelling nonprofit organization website with or without prior design knowledge.
One way to achieve this is to explore other best nonprofit websites to identify what they do and how they do it, gathering inspiration to set your website up for success. But before, let’s see what a nonprofit organization is.
What Is a Nonprofit Site?
A nonprofit site is a webpage primarily used for communicating the missions and objectives of your charity or nonprofit organization using web design and content. It should effortlessly impact visitors, encouraging them to support your cause by donating, volunteering, etc.
A nonprofit organization website can also be used for sharing activities, increasing exposure, distributing press releases, creating a community, and publicizing an upcoming event.
Top 10 Nonprofit Website Examples for Inspiration
Find below a comprehensive review of the best nonprofit websites where you can draw design inspiration when designing yours.
1. NewWest Community Capital
The first on our list of the best nonprofit website examples for inspiration is the NewWest Community Capital site!
The major feature of this organization website is the amazing full-screen scrolling effect that carefully guides visitors through your content, encouraging them to support your organization’s mission and objectives.
A subtle on-scroll animation, a sticky menu bar for easy navigation, and a creative blend of color are also other features that make this nonprofit website stand out.
Do you like this nonprofit website? This website is using Fullpage.js, a JavaScript scrolling component that’s also available for WordPress editors, including Elementor and Gutenberg. Check it out!
2. Ocean Conservancy
This nonprofit website example features a blue color scheme that seamlessly blends with the videos and images of ocean life employed on the site.
Apart from the donate button creatively placed at the homepage, Ocean Conservancy also includes an email form to gather certain visitors’ details for future donations and possible involvements.
There is also a menu navigation bar included at the top of the page to allow visitors to explore more thoroughly. The on-scroll animation effect also enhances the overall user experience on the website.
3. Acumen
Undoubtedly, the best nonprofit websites should let visitors know what they do as quickly as possible on their homepage. Acumen does this perfectly! The hero section of the website includes a CTA button that allows you quickly understand what they stand for and how you can be a part of their journey.
Although employing a minimalistic design, this nonprofit site is evidently colorful, offering visitors a great sense of brand identity and allowing them to stay even longer on the site.
The sticky menu bar employed also ensures easy navigation and accessibility of the site. Acumen is also responsive and will work perfectly on all screen sizes and types.
4. Too Young to Wed
Like the Acumen website, Too Young to Wed also lets their visitors know what they stand for and how they can help immediately after landing on their page. The only difference is that Too Young to Wed employs an interactive Fullscreen video to ensure user engagement right from the top of their site.
This organization website also uses the parallax scrolling effect as visitors scroll further down the page, creating some sort of spotlight on child-bride stories. This use of strong imagery makes this website stand out, stirring strong emotions in their visitors and encouraging them to support their cause.
5. Exodus Cry
The Exodus Cry nonprofit organization website features a gorgeous design with powerful imagery and color pattern. The perfectly placed CTA buttons included at the homepage do not only catch the attention of visitors immediately after landing on the site but also encourage them to give.
There is a subtle parallax scrolling effect employed at the center of the page, creating an amusing effect for visitors. Exodus Cry also includes multiple links in the footer section to help their users delve even deeper into other sections of the website.
6. Save The Kiwi
Another nonprofit website worthy of consideration is the Save the Kiwi organization website. Although featuring a relatively basic design, the employed layout allows them to get their points across to visitors efficiently and very quickly.
The high-quality image sliders at the top of the page ensure user engagement immediately after landing on the page; the subsequent interactive video creatively leads visitors to the CTA button that allows them to support your cause.
Save the Kiwi is a brilliant approach to make visitors do exactly what you want them to do.
7. First Descents
This is another brilliant nonprofit website with a bold and exciting design that perfectly represents their mission and primary objectives.
First Descents features a sticky hamburger menu originally located at the bottom of the page but migrates to the top as you continue to scroll down the page. This element ensures easy navigation, allowing visitors to quickly find important pages.
You can also learn more on how to make a responsive hamburger menu in this article.
The sticky menu bar also includes multiple CTA buttons that seamlessly encourage your visitors to support your cause. The blurb on First Descents’ program page is also a brilliant feature!
8. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
The last on our list of the best nonprofit websites is the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital nonprofit website!
This site employs a tiled layout, efficiently presenting loads of information and links without boring or distracting visitors. This approach allows your site visitors to find elements that quickly catch their interest.
9. Invisible Children
The Invisible Children organization website explores storytelling, creatively encouraging site visitors to make donations.
You can also check out other top storytelling website examples for even more design inspiration.
With strategically placed CTA buttons, the layout of this website ensures premium user engagement, causing users to spend an even longer period on the site. Invisible Children also includes a contact form for lead generation.
10. Save the Rhino
This is a major feature profit website featuring a minimalistic design with an intuitive hero slider section that keeps site visitors hooked immediately after landing on the page. The sticky dropdown menu bar ensures easy navigation, allowing visitors to dig deeper into the website.
You can learn more about how to create a sticky navigation bar using CSS and JavaScript in this article.
Save the Rhino also includes carefully-placed CTA buttons at the header and footer section to encourage visitors to support their cause via donation, shopping, joining, etc.
What Makes a Good Nonprofit Website?
These are the elements that make a good nonprofit websiste stand out from the rest:
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Clear “Donate” button: make sure to add a clear call-to-action “donate” button. Make it easy for visitors to donate. They are usually added to the header.
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Clear message: state clearly what the organization does. How it does it and where does the money go. Make sure to add a “what we do” or “our programs” page where visitors can learn more about the project and get convinced of its utility.
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Show financial reports: being transparent is a great way to encourage others to take part in the project and to really trust it. When things are done properly showing the financial results is just a way to show off. You can add links to the PDF files to keep things simple. What matters is the content. See this example.
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Add an “Our Team” page:: make sure that the visitor knows who is behind. This will provide additional trust to the visitor. Add some pictures of the team members or the team as a whole and ideally explain the role of each person in the organization. We connect with humans, so putting faces to the people behind is a great way to achieve a connection with the visitor. Check out a great example here.
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Add a “Get involved” page: usually we want to capture new team members or to get donations from our visitors right? So let’s make it super easy for them to know how they can get involved and contribute in the project. Create a specific page for it and provide all the necessary details. See this example.
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List your partners: providing social proof is a great way to show your visitors that you are trustworthy. List other organizations or companies that partner with you so they can know you have the support of others and the mediums to make your project succeed.
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Add social media links: integrating your social media accounts on your website allows you to share new and up-to-date information about your organization every time with both new and revisiting site visitors.
Step Forward With Your Non-profit Website!
And there you have it – the list of the best nonprofit website examples for design inspiration!
Of course, creating your nonprofit website may be somewhat tricky, particularly because of the sensitive information you may need to convey to your visitors. Hence, there is a need for a brilliant website layout that allows you to pass your message across effectively.
Examining the already existing nonprofit organization websites is one way to make the designing process easier. Thankfully, any of the examples explored in this article are great sources of inspiration to start designing your nonprofit website.
