The Process (Discovery to Launch)
What does a good web development agency discovery process look like for a nonprofit website design or redesign?
Discovery, the initial strategy phase of a nonprofit web design project, helps ensure the web development team identifies your highest priority problems before moving into design and development. During Discovery, DevCollaborative researches the needs of your staff and audiences, defines priorities, and makes informed decisions about the information architecture, sitemap, functionality, and technical approach that will serve both audiences. Together, we determine a plan for building an initial “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP), which we can iterate on over time.
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What is included in project management and communication for a nonprofit website project?
Throughout your nonprofit website project, you will work with a dedicated project manager who oversees the budget, timeline, and tasks, ensuring all deadlines and requirements are met. DevCollaborative’s project manager will keep you apprised of ongoing progress on a weekly basis, and unexpected events or crises on an immediate basis. We use various project management tools including Harvest to manage budget and Asana to manage tasks. We will invite you to follow along and collaborate with us. It is tremendously helpful when the Client Lead also brings good project management and consensus-building skills.
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5 Biggest Cost Drivers of Nonprofit Website Projects
What are the stages of a nonprofit website redesign project?
The four stages of a nonprofit website design or redesign project are strategy through a discovery process, design, development, and ongoing support.
- Strategy: research, content strategy, information architecture
- Design: wireframes and mockups of accessible UX layouts and aesthetic designs based on branding
- Development: open-source CMS, components, templates, content migration
- Ongoing support: monitoring, updates, consulting
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What are the benefits of including visual design in my nonprofit website project?
Design brings your brand to life in an elegant, up-to-date, web-friendly way, and improves accessibility to help you connect with as many people as possible. Complex, bespoke design that works against, rather than with, your content management system (CMS) is one of the most common causes of budget spillover and brittle, buggy websites. DevCollaborative designs sites that express each nonprofit’s unique identity while following web development best practices.
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5 Biggest Cost Drivers of Nonprofit Website Projects
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What services does DevCollaborative offer for nonprofit, higher education, and philanthropy website design and development projects?
DevCollaborative offers four main categories of services:
- Strategy
- Design
- Drupal & Wordpress Development
- Ongoing Support
Strategy helps all stakeholders get clear on what success looks like for the website project. Design establishes a visual language that is accessible to a broad range of people. Drupal & Wordpress development makes use of the “the open-source superhighway” to ensure long-term code sustainability. DevCollaborative remains a steward of your codebase and an advocate for your goals through ongoing support.
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Does DevCollaborative offer content migration services for nonprofit website redesign projects?
DevCollaborative has years of experience in migrating content into and out of both Drupal and WordPress. We consult with each nonprofit to strategically plan out what content to migrate, and how to migrate it, balancing users’ needs with the organization’s budget and staff time. When helpful, we programmatically migrate content to save time. At the end of the migration, the content is accurate, relevant, and findable.
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Agency & Vendor Vetting
What is the best type of web development agency to design or update our nonprofit, philanthropy, or higher education website?
The best type of web development agency to hire for your nonprofit website project is a consultative partner who works with you to build a site that will last, helps you prioritize user and organization needs, meets your long-term goals, and addresses immediate needs. Transactional partners may meet your urgent needs and cost less up front, but without a deep, long-term understanding of your organization’s priorities, a transactional development agency may also introduce unnecessary complexity, provide solutions that don’t solve underlying problems, and burden your organization with hefty maintenance costs over the long term.
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Should a nonprofit hire a web agency that specializes in nonprofits?
Working with a partner that specializes in nonprofit sites can be extremely helpful, as they have a deep understanding of funding cycles, capacity issues, sustainability concerns, and other kinds of business challenges specific to nonprofits. Agencies like DevCollaborative who have over a decade of experience working with nonprofits know how to work within budget caps — sometimes even talking nonprofit clients out of high-budget projects that won’t meet their long-term goals.
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What should we include when writing a nonprofit website request for proposal (RFP)?
The most important things to communicate in the RFP for a nonprofit website project are clear project goals and outcomes, a description of your organization, target audiences, a budget range, a suggested timeline, any technology or platform requirements, and an openness to collaboration with your vendor partner. This approach is best for attracting a consultative partner who will help prioritize your needs and build a robust website within your budget.
Because good communication is essential for project success, we recommend an RFP process that allows meeting with potential development partners prior to proposal deadlines whenever possible. This allows you and the vendor candidates to meet and get a sense of working and communication styles, to gauge mutual fit, and helps vendors produce more accurate proposals.
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Website Cost & Timeline
How much does a nonprofit website redesign and rebuild project cost?
At DevCollaborative, nonprofit website redesign and rebuild projects range in cost from $35,000 to $100,000+. Because every project is unique, we provide custom quotes after talking with organizations about their goals and priorities. There are five major areas that can potentially drive the cost of a nonprofit website project up: the number of custom page designs, components, and interactions, the timeline and decision-making process, content migration process, CSM selection, strategy and prioritization.
For organizations on a tiny budget, DevCollaborative also provides starter kit website packages and tiny services.
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How much does it cost to design and build a new nonprofit website?
At DevCollaborative, nonprofit website redesign and update projects range in cost from $25,000 to over $100,000. Because every project is unique, we provide custom quotes after talking with organizations about their goals and priorities. There are five major areas that can potentially drive the cost of a nonprofit website project up: the number of custom page designs, components, and interactions, the timeline and decision-making process, CSM selection, strategy and prioritization.
For organizations on a tiny budget, DevCollaborative also provides starter kit website packages and tiny services.
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How long does it take to design and build a nonprofit website?
At DevCollaborative, our projects range in length from three months to 12 months. Many of our sites are continually updated post-launch based on real-world user testing and feedback, so many sites evolve into their most fully-realized versions over many years. Because every project is unique, we provide custom project timelines after talking with organizations about their goals, priorities, and deadlines.
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How do I know if my nonprofit website needs to be redesigned?
Four common issues that signal the need for a nonprofit website redesign:
- your site is difficult to update and you want to save your staff time and improve inefficient processes
- the design no longer reflects your organization
- you have outgrown your current CMS and need one that can scale
- you need to improve accessibility to reach a broader audience
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Technology and Platforms
Which is the best CMS for my nonprofit website — Drupal, WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix?
For most growing nonprofits, Drupal or WordPress will serve you better than Squarespace or Wix. Most successful organizations outgrow click-together-friendly systems like Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly once those platforms’ limitations make work harder rather than easier. Drupal and WordPress are the two most widely-used open source CMS platforms in the world, offering flexibility, large support communities, and long-term sustainability that proprietary platforms can’t match. The right choice between Drupal and WordPress depends on the scope and complexity of your content needs — and a good development partner can help you sort that out.
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How should my nonprofit organization be using AI right now?
Experiment with AI tools internally, keep tracking how AI is changing search results, but don’t add AI features to your website without a solid use case that directly addresses the needs of the people you serve. AI is just a tool, and right now it’s very likely not the right tool for your job. Your organization may have a great use case for AI now or soon, but instead of leading with technology, lead with service to your mission.
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How to Use AI in Your Nonprofit Work
What are some quick and low-cost ways to make my nonprofit, higher education, or philanthropy website more accessible or ADA compliant?
Quick and low-cost ways to improve web accessibility include adding descriptive alt text to images, switching to colors that meet WCAG2 contrast standards, breaking up long sections of text with short headers written in plain language, fixing broken contact forms, and removing jargon. Web accessibility helps nonprofits increase website engagement, reach more people, and avoid costly lawsuits.
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Webinar Recording: Writing Accessible Content for Your Nonprofit Website
The Best Drupal Accessibility Checker for Content Authors Is… Editoria11y
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If you’re not sure where the biggest issues are on your site, a one-hour accessibility consulting session ($200) can help you identify and prioritize the fixes that will make the most meaningful difference for your visitors.
Security
How can we make our nonprofit, higher education, or philanthropy website more secure?
Website security is multilayered, but start by using a password manager, updating your CMS software, and backing up your website. Password managers protect your logins, and ensure your organization — not one staff member or vendor — owns your accounts and domain names. Keep your CMS software up to date with proactive monitoring and security updates. If your content could be subject to censorship or a takedown order, a website protection plan can ensure you have a backup and can maintain your web presence.
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How do we protect our nonprofit, higher education, or philanthropy website from a hostile government?
To protect your nonprofit website from a hostile government, regularly back up your website to a secure location, move (or be ready to move) your website hosting to a web host committed to protecting free speech, transfer your website’s domain name(s) to a domain registrar openly committed to protecting free speech, and develop a communications plan for potential censorship threats. We recommend conducting a threat assessment to determine whether your organization’s site may be vulnerable.
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Post-Launch Support and Maintenance
What ongoing support do nonprofits need after a website redesign?
After launch, nonprofits typically need proactive monitoring and security updates, and periodic enhancement projects as priorities change. A great website is only ever somewhat complete — it needs ongoing care and feeding, good stewardship, and enhancements as technology, your organization, and your users’ needs evolve. Beware of support plans that simply implement feature requests with no questions asked: this risks creating sites that evolve piecemeal, introducing technical debt and an inconsistent user experience. The best ongoing support is consultative — understanding the underlying need before developing a solution.
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When my nonprofit website is broken, what details do I need to share with my web developers to get it fixed quickly and stay within budget?
To get your website fixed quickly and stay within budget, tell your web developers what problem you experienced, what device(s) and browser(s) you used, what your budget and time limits are, and what a successful solution would be for your organization. Either fill out your dev team’s support form or reach out to the project manager. DevCollaborative clients should file a ticket via our Helpdesk [LINK] form.
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If you don’t have a developer team providing ongoing website support, we would be glad to help.
What are some quick ways to keep my nonprofit website updated so it remains easy to use and lasts more than a few years?
Three ways to keep your nonprofit website updated: use a password manager, update your CMS, and use a style guide. Use a password manager to protect your logins, and ensure your organization — not one staff member or vendor — owns your accounts and domain names. Keep your CMS software up to date with proactive monitoring and security updates. Create a style guide for documenting and updating your brand to streamline onboarding and keep your visual identity consistent. DevCollaborative can keep you on the right track with ongoing support.