Building a nonprofit site

A great site for a nonprofit organization should share your mission and inspire people to support it. This guide covers how to pick a starting design for your site, set up donations, and keep your community engaged.

Start with a nonprofit design

While all Squarespace sites have the built-in design tools to make an exciting, original nonprofit site, you may want to start with a design from the Community & Nonprofits category of the template store. These outreach-centered designs highlight your mission and help visitors get involved.

To get started, visit the template store and select Community & Nonprofits in the menu on the left. This filters the designs to only show nonprofit-focused templates. Click Preview on any design, or click Start With to create a new site using that design. 

To learn more, visit Choosing the right template.

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 section or video block. 

Accept donations

Connect a payment processor and 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 projects 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 pre-built About layout. Or, you can use a blank page and build the page using text blocks. 

If you have multiple projects, 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 and calendar block. 

Keep your community updated

To send email newsletters and fundraising campaigns to supporters, use Squarespace Email Campaigns. With Email Campaigns, you can add signup forms to your site, grow your subscriber list, and design newsletters that match your brand.

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 tools by signing up for Google MyBusiness and verifying your site with Google Search Console. To learn more about search engine optimization, visit our SEO best practices guide.

Next steps

Now that you have a new site to spread your mission, explore our Getting started video series for inspiration and follow these steps to make your site even more impactful:

• Add bios of your leaders and board members using a pre-built Team layout.
• Add an FAQ page to answer questions that visitors and donors might have about your organization using a pre-built FAQ layout.
• Connect your site to social media to create a well-rounded online presence. 
• Make style changes to tailor your site's look and feel to fit your organization. 
• Enable customer accounts so donors can save their payment information and make donations more quickly in the future.