Charity website redesign: a step-by-step guide

When it’s time to redesign

A redesign makes sense when the site no longer does its two jobs: explaining your work clearly and making giving easy. Common signs are a donation journey that loses people on phones, a site your team can’t update without help, slow pages, or a structure built around your org chart instead of your supporters.

Start with goals, not looks

Agree what the new site must change, in numbers where you can: more online gifts, more monthly donors, fewer support emails, faster pages. These goals will settle most design arguments later.

Audit what you have

Look at your analytics, your search traffic and your content. Find the pages that bring people in and the ones nobody visits. Talk to supporters and to the staff who run the site. You will often find you need fewer pages, not more.

Write a clear brief

A good brief covers your goals, your audiences, the features you need (donations, campaigns, languages, integrations), your content, your timeline and how decisions will be made. Our page for procurement teams explains how we respond to one.

Choose a partner

Look for a team that has built sites like yours, can show results, and will be honest about trade-offs. Ask to speak to their clients, and to the people who would actually do the work.

Protect your search rankings

Map every old address to a new one, carry over titles and descriptions, and set up redirects before launch. Then watch Search Console closely for the first few weeks. Our migration service covers this in detail.

Launch, then keep improving

Test the donation journey on real phones, check accessibility, then launch. The first months after launch are when you learn the most, so plan a round of improvements based on real use.