Website for non-profits: donations, volunteers and where the budget should go

en 2026-09-26 7 min read

A non-profit website is a step 02 or step 03 build: a mini-site of 2 to 3 pages at EUR 900 to 1.500, or a business website of 4 to 7 pages with a CMS at EUR 1.500 to 3.500. Taking donations on your own site, with recurring gifts or donor logins, moves it to step 04 at EUR 3.500 to 7.500, and a hosted donation page from your payment provider can do that job without the build.

Every euro spent on the site is a euro not spent on the work itself, so this page is about which parts of a site repay that money.

Three visitors, three different questions

A donor wants to know the money is used well. A volunteer wants to know what they would actually do and who to contact. A funder or partner wants the formal details: registration, board, reports. A site that serves one of them leaves the other two to email you, if they bother.

That sets what the site has to cover: what you do, how to help and where the money goes, with a contact flow that reaches a person. For a small organisation, that fits on the two to three pages of step 02.

Donations: the decision that sets the price

The cheaper way to take money online is a hosted donation page. Your payment provider or a donation platform runs the form, the card details and the receipt, and your donate button links to it. What you give up is control: the page looks like their product, and recurring donors live in their system rather than yours. Check what each platform takes per donation before you choose.

The other way is a donation flow built into your own site and connected to your CRM, with recurring gifts donors manage themselves. That is payments, a CRM and donor logins: step 04, EUR 3.500 to 7.500 over 6 to 12 weeks. It is worth it when individual donors are your main income and someone on staff looks after them. It is not worth it to make a donate page match your colours.

Transparency is content, not a feature

Donors and funders look for where the money goes, and answering that is writing, not engineering: an impact page with figures you can stand behind, a page on the board, and the annual report as web pages as well as a PDF. The PDF is the formal record. Pages can be read on a phone, found in search and linked from a funding application.

If you are a Dutch organisation with ANBI status, the Belastingdienst requires certain details on your website, including your RSIN, your board members and their roles, your remuneration policy, the main points of your policy plan, a report of activities and a financial statement. Check their current list before the build starts. Give those details a structured page in the CMS, so updating them after each annual report is an edit, not a developer job.

Volunteers: a form first, software later

Recruiting volunteers needs role pages that say honestly what the work involves, and a sign-up form that reaches a person who replies. Both fit inside step 02 or step 03.

Shift schedules, volunteer logins and hours tracking are a dashboard with accounts, which is step 04, or an add-on at EUR 1.500 to 4.000 on the site you have. Look at dedicated volunteer management tools first. If one fits, link to it and keep the site simple.

Which step fits which organisation

Care at EUR 100 to 300 a month covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes, not a redesign or new features. Every range becomes a fixed quote after scoping, and the full ladder is on packages.

Where the budget should honestly go

1. The words and the photographs. A plain account of what you do, with real photographs of the work, taken with the consent of the people in them. Stock images of smiling volunteers could belong to any appeal.
2. The route to helping. The donate button and the volunteer form should be reachable from every page and should work on a phone.
3. Accessibility. Readable type, proper contrast and real headings let people using screen readers or larger text use the site, and they cost little when planned in from the start.
4. More than one person who can maintain it. If one volunteer holds everything anyone knows about the site, the site stops the day they leave.

Where it should not go: animation, a donor portal before you have recurring donors to put in it, a news section nobody will write for, and a second language nobody will keep current.

How the build runs

Step 02 takes 2 to 3 weeks: a scoping call, page structure, copy, design and build, review and launch, with the contact flow and CMS working before it goes live.

Step 03 takes 3 to 6 weeks. The part that waits on you is approval. If copy needs sign-off from a board or committee, find out when they meet and who has the final word before the project starts. Photo consent waits on you too, and it has to be in hand before anyone you support appears on a public page. More on design and engineering.

When to spend less

• If the organisation is volunteer-run and nobody will update the site, choose step 02 over step 03. Fewer pages means fewer pages going out of date.
• If your donation platform already gives you a campaign page you are happy with, keep it and link to it. Do not pay to rebuild something that works.
• If a volunteer tool already handles your sign-ups and shifts, link to it instead of paying for logins.
• If your current site works and a new one would be paid for out of programme spending, do not hire us yet. Fix the donate button and the contact details, and come back when the site has its own budget.

Questions organisations ask before they commit

Can we take donations directly on our own site?

Yes. That is payments on the site: step 04, EUR 3.500 to 7.500, or an add-on at EUR 600 to 1.500 on the site you have, best paired with a CRM connection so each gift lands against a donor record. If you only need a donate button that works, a hosted page from your payment provider does that for far less.

Can our staff and volunteers edit the site themselves?

From step 02 there is a CMS for exactly that. Train more than one person, and give each editor access to the content they change rather than to everything. A site only one person can edit stops whenever that person is away.

What happens if the person who looks after our site leaves?

The code, the repository and the database belong to the organisation, not to us and not to whoever arranged the project. Hosting is agreed per project, and we can host it for you.

Is search worth paying for?

Start with the foundation. An SEO foundation at EUR 450 to 750, paid once, covers Search Console, analytics, indexation, technical hygiene, titles and internal links, plus a 3 to 6 month plan. SEO growth at EUR 500 to 800 a month is harder to justify unless people search for your cause in your area.

If you can tell us what the organisation does and what you want a visitor to do next, we can tell you which step fits. Tell us about your organisation.