A great site for a non-profit organization should share your mission and inspire people to support it. This guide covers ideal templates for nonprofits, how to accept donations, and tips for keeping your community engaged.
Choose a template
You can accept donations and build mailing lists in all templates, but the following templates work especially well for nonprofit sites. Each starts with a bold image, text, or call to action which captures the attention of your visitors and encourages them to get involved.
Bedford
Bedford puts your call to action first with a full-bleed banner. You can add a button to the banner and Main Navigation, encouraging visitors to join the cause.
For detailed instructions, visit Bedford's template guide.
Impact
Impact utilizes negative space to showcase your work without relying heavily on images. Use bold fonts and alternate background colors to create visual interest and move visitors through your site.
For detailed instructions, visit Brine's template guide.
Mentor
Mentor helps you drive action with a bold header and special layout features to make your content stand out. Use the content inset to showcase information about your mission or special campaigns.
For detailed instructions, visit Brine's template guide.
Share your mission
Your mission is what makes your organization unique, so create an About page to introduce your work and the community you serve. You can also use images and video to convey your organization's impact by adding a Gallery Block or Video Block.
Accept donations
Add a Donation Block to help reach your fundraising goals. You can customize your suggested donation amounts and collect information from your supporters to keep them updated about your projects.
Ask for volunteers
Add a Contact Page where visitors can sign up to volunteer through a Form Block. You can collect their information by connecting Mailchimp, Google Drive, or your email address.
If you manage volunteers through a third party, you can add a link to your navigation that directs visitors to your volunteer portal.
Feature your campaigns and partners
Use a Layout Page to showcase your initiatives and partnerships, and explain why they're important. To fill in the blanks of an existing layout, use a starter layout. Or, you can use a blank layout and build the page using Text Blocks.
If you have multiple campaigns, create an individual page for each one and display them in a navigation drop-down menu.
If you host events, promote them with an Events Page or Calendar Block.
Keep your community updated
To send email newsletters and fundraising campaigns to supporters, use our Mailchimp integration to add signup forms to your site, grow your subscriber list, and design campaigns.
Regularly posting to a Blog Page is also a great way to share the impact you're making in the community you serve. You can add a Blog Page to any template and automatically push updates to social media. Blogging involves updating your site frequently, which helps search engines see it as an active site. To learn more, visit Blogging with Squarespace.
Optimize for search engines
There are many techniques for helping your site's search engine results. First, if your organization has a local presence, add a contact page with your physical location.
You can also use Google's SEO tools like Google MyBusiness and verify your site with Google Search Console.
For more information about SEO, read our SEO best practices.
Next steps
Now that you have a new site to spread your mission, explore our Getting started tutorial series for inspiration. Follow these steps to make your site even more impactful:
- Add photos of the communities you serve to a Gallery Page.
- Add bios of your leaders and board members using a Team starter layout on a Layout Page.
- Connect your site to social media to create a well-rounded online presence.
- Add an FAQ page to answer questions that visitors and donors might have about your organization.
- Use Site Styles to tailor your site's look and feel to fit your organization.