Non-Profits & Charities
Non-profit website design in Vancouver.
Websites for Vancouver non-profits, not-for-profit societies, registered charities and member associations. Built to take donations, to be updated by whichever volunteer has the login this year, and to meet the website requirements behind a Google Ad Grants application. One fixed price, hosting included, and you own it at the end.
What a non-profit site has to do that a business site doesn’t
Most agencies will build you the same website they build a plumber, put a donate button on it and call the job done. These are the four things that actually change, and they change the build rather than the decoration.
The people editing it keep changing
Boards rotate. The volunteer who ran the website moves away. A site that needs its original builder, or a manual, is a site that quietly stops being updated eighteen months after launch. We build the editing experience for whoever inherits it, not for whoever signs off on it.
It has to ask for money without feeling like it
A donate button is the easy part. The harder part is the page around it: what the money does, who it reaches, and why now. Recurring monthly giving is worth more than one-off donations to almost every organization, and it needs to be offered properly rather than buried as a checkbox.
Funders and members actually read it
Businesses get judged by customers. Non-profits get judged by funders, granting bodies, members and the occasional journalist, all of whom look for different things. Your programs, your board, your financials and your contact details need to be findable without a hunt.
Accessibility is often not optional
Plenty of funding agreements carry accessibility expectations, and beyond compliance the audience for a lot of non-profit work includes people using screen readers, keyboard navigation or high-contrast modes. Proper semantic structure, real contrast and keyboard-navigable menus are how we build anyway.
The part most people miss
Your website is what qualifies you for Google Ad Grants
Google gives eligible non-profits up to $10,000 USD every month in free search advertising through the Google Ad Grants program. Not a discount. Ad credit, renewed monthly, for as long as you stay compliant. For most small organizations that is larger than the entire marketing budget.
In Canada the eligibility side is mostly out of your hands: you generally need to be a registered charity with the CRA, and verification runs through TechSoup. Certain organizations, including government entities, hospitals and most schools, are excluded by Google’s own policy.
The half that is in your hands is the website. Google expects a live site on a domain you own, a valid SSL certificate, and substantial original content that makes clear what your organization does and who it serves. Thin sites, sites still on a free builder subdomain, and copy lifted from somewhere else are exactly what gets applications held up.
We build every site to that standard as a matter of course, so if you decide to apply, the website is not the thing in your way. We do not manage the application itself and we would be wary of anyone who promises approval, because Google decides it.
Proof
Donations, volunteers and compliance, already built
A campaign runs on the same machinery a non-profit does, so the closest match to your build is Paul Van Ryssel’s city council campaign. Donations on two rails, card and Interac e-transfer, with a reconciliation panel for matching transfers as they land. The authorization statement the rules require, placed exactly where they require it.
Four supporter forms, all bot-protected, delivering straight to the inbox. A mailing list the campaign owns outright rather than renting from a newsletter service. And on-page editing, so when the message shifted, the site shifted the same hour without anyone calling us.
Swap donors for supporters and grant reporting for campaign finance and it is the same list. That is why we lead with it. We can show you our builds and the reviews from every one of them.
We are a small studio based in Nanaimo working with organizations across Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. Everything runs by phone, email and video call. The practical effect for a Vancouver non-profit is that you get the work without paying for downtown overhead in the quote, which for an organization spending donor money is not a small thing.
Common questions
- What should a nonprofit website include?
- At minimum: a plain statement of your mission and who you serve, a page for each program, a way to give that works on a phone, your board and your charity registration number if you have one, and contact details that are not buried three clicks down. If you report to funders, add whatever they expect to find. Most organizations are better off doing those few things properly than adding pages nobody reads.
- How much does a non-profit website cost?
- Every project is quoted individually and you get one fixed price up front, agreed before any work starts. There is no hourly meter, which matters more than usual for a non-profit because an open-ended invoice is very hard to take to a board. If your funding arrives on a grant cycle, say so when you get in touch and we will work to that date rather than ours.
- Can our volunteers update the site without breaking it?
- Yes, and this is the requirement we design around first. You edit text and images directly on the live page: click the text, type the new version, save. There is no separate dashboard to learn and no training document to hand the next volunteer. When your board turns over, the site does not become unmaintainable.
- Will the site help us qualify for Google Ad Grants?
- Google decides eligibility, not us, and the main requirement in Canada is being a registered charity with the CRA. What we control is the website side of their policy: a live site on your own domain, a valid SSL certificate, and substantial original content that clearly explains your mission and who you serve. We build to that standard by default, so the site is not the thing holding your application up.
- Can you take donations on the site?
- Yes, including recurring monthly giving, and we have built donations with a card rail and an Interac e-transfer rail running side by side. Money is handled by a payment processor rather than stored by us. If you are a registered charity issuing tax receipts, the receipting requirements are the CRA's and we build around whatever your finance people or your donation platform already use.
- You are in Nanaimo, not Vancouver. Does that matter?
- Not for the work. Everything runs by phone, email and video call, and most of our clients across Vancouver Island never needed an in-person meeting either. What it does mean is that you are not paying for a downtown Vancouver office in your quote. If you specifically need someone in the room, we are the wrong fit and we will say so early.
- Do we own the website?
- Yes. Once the project is paid in full the website is yours: the design, the content and everything on it. For a non-profit that matters more than for most clients, because the person who commissioned it usually is not the person who inherits it three years later.
Tell us what your organization does.
A quote is free and there is no obligation at the end of it. If your budget is tied to a grant cycle or a fiscal year end, mention it and we will work to that date. If we are not the right fit we will tell you and point you somewhere that is.