Free Website Design for Your Nonprofit Organization

A couple of warnings first:

  • You get what you pay for. Just keep that in mind when you are looking for some free website design.
    You will have to pay for your "free" website with spending time on your chosen solution - time you might have spent more productively on raising money, finding a sponsor or expanding your programs. While it is certainly possible to do an adequate website design without spending money (or very little of it) when all things are said and done, more often than not, you would have been better off paying for a professional to do it.
  • Design is only one part of creating and operating a website - you have to think about hosting, knowing and managing the chosen website technology, creating and updating content (text, images, etc.) or utilizing the website to achieve your goals. You have to consider all these areas with your design to create a successful internet presence.
  • DO NOT CHOOSE a free design template from the Internet if you don't know how to modify it to your needs! It will end up sitting pretty and lonely on your computer.
 With that said, here you can discover some of the ways to create a free or almost free website design for your nonprofit organization:

Free Design by a Volunteer

Finding a good volunteer takes time, clear established standards, resourcefulness, good judgement - and the willingness to say goodbye to those who are not up to the par. And in my experience, this last one is often very hard for a nonprofit manager with limited resources clinging onto any volunteers willing to help. But without establishing clear expectations and website standards you won't get the results you want and will be even harder to let that volunteer go without hurt feelings. If you just go out there and say, "Hey, can anyone put together a website for me for free?" then don't expect a pretty result.

So your first job is to treat this as a professional project and determine the purpose of your website, then the clear functions and content of each page, addressing all your needs. You might not know every details but make your best effort to write down everything you can think of.

Download a website need assessment form you could use to start this process.

Ahh, one more thing: focus on content, not the design! This might seem an anomaly since we are talking about free design here, but a successful website will have a subtle and aesthetic design that supports a good content - if you have flashy colors, huge fonts or too many moving stuff on your webpages it will distract your visitors from your message.

Second, in order to pull off a good free site you would have to find a volunteer who has free time, motivation and experience - usually hard to come by in one package. The best to look for a professional who does this for a living and willing to do it pro-bono for you - the best is if he likes your cause but could be because of the challenge or other reasons.

Some of the places you can find a good volunteer:

  • Your local nonprofit association's resource guide - look up all the webdesign companies/professionals,
  • Professional webdesign groups (including online associations/resources like www.freelancedesigners.com or www.guru.com),
  • Find an IT company to sponsor your website (or more) and have them do it for you,
  • And as a last resort, the Website/Graphic Design courses of close-by Universities/Colleges.

While I believe that generally a paid designer doesn't have to be located near you and you can communicate through the phone, in case of volunteers I would recommend having them nearby so you can meet them in person. Trust is more of a factor with volunteers and talking with them face-to-face will help you assess their character better.

Almost Free Design - Use Website Templates

There are many web-based website design templates are available these days that will cost you only a few dollars yet produce basic but professional webpages for you. It's the next best thing to free and you will receive many added advantages.

You should still have a clear need assessment done to guide you before you start any design work. After that, if you find that your needs are still basic (mostly "one-way" informational site without complex dynamic functions or login/password protected pages) then you should look at the possibility of doing it yourself with a template software.

I recommend WebSite Tonight - It is from GoDaddy, the best company offering quality products for budget conscious customers. Godaddy also offers package discounts: if you register a domain with them then you will get a free 5-page template package with that domain name. This basic package will be add-supported (hey, it's free for you, after all) but it gives you the opportunity to try it out and see if you like it. If you do you can purchase 5, 10, and unlimited page plans for a very small monthly fee and recieve not only a very user friendly, template-based, easy-to-edit pages but a host of advanced features:

  • Discussion Forum
  • Video function
  • Password protected pages
  • Custom form builder
  • Large image library (over 8000 images)
  • Guestbook
  • Photo Album
  • Hosting included! (So you actually don't have to pay for hosting which make this service actually "free")
  • And many more...

You won't find a better deal for this many juice packed into a package.

The next level of free website design is to use a free WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) type of HTML editor - these will give you some more control over the design and functions but you will have some more learning to do and will also loose some extra functionalities that comes with WebSite Tonight.

Next I will recommend a good HTML editor - when I have some time and come back to finish this page :-)
 

Contact Us

If you have any website needs, questions, concerns, or need answers to life's fundamental questions Wink then by all means contact us! We will be glad to help (might not be able with the last but try...)