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Is Squarespace Right for Your Nonprofit? A Strategic Checklist
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Too often, we see nonprofit websites fail to live up to this potential. Limited resources force organizations to treat their site as a one-time project, leading to a static presence that quickly feels outdated and disconnected from the evolving mission. This is a primary reason why so many marketing and storytelling efforts fail to gain traction—they are built on weak digital foundations.
A truly effective nonprofit website is a living, breathing asset at the core of your strategy. It’s where your Brand, Digital, and Activation efforts intersect to create a cohesive, powerful experience. Shifting your perspective from a static page to a dynamic hub is the first step in transforming your digital presence from fragmented to integrated and your impact from invisible to magnetic.
The Foundation: Strategic Do's for Your Nonprofit Website
Building an impactful website begins long before you choose a color palette or write a line of code. It starts with a strategic foundation designed to support your mission for the long haul.
Do: Treat Your Website as the Central Hub of Your Digital Ecosystem
Your website should not be an island. It’s the sun around which your other digital platforms orbit. Your email marketing, social media presence, and CRM data should all connect back to and be informed by your website. This is how you move from a fragmented collection of tools to an integrated digital ecosystem that supports modern, relationship-based communication.
When your website serves as this central hub, it provides a consistent brand experience and a single source of truth for your supporters. Every blog post, campaign, and social media update can drive traffic back to your site, where you have the full attention of your audience and the best opportunity to build a deeper connection. This is the core of a modern **social impact strategy**—ensuring all parts work in concert to advance the mission.
Do: Build a Clear Path to Activation
Activation is the process of turning attention into action. It’s the most critical—and often the most challenging—part of social impact work. If you don’t have a clear plan for activation, it should be your top priority. Your website is your primary tool for this.
Map out your audience's journey. Use a nonprofit marketing funnel model to guide visitors from initial awareness (top of the funnel), to deeper engagement (middle), and finally to a specific action (bottom). This means designing clear pathways for donations, volunteer sign-ups, and newsletter subscriptions that are prominent, intuitive, and compelling. At its core, activation is about making it easy for people to say yes.
Do: Prioritize Human-Centered Storytelling
Complex problems are difficult to translate into simple stories. Many organizations get stuck in academic speak and industry buzzwords, leaving audiences confused about what they do and why it matters. Your website is your best opportunity to cut through the jargon and connect on a human level.
Use your digital hub to nail your impact story. Showcase the lives you’ve changed and the progress you've made through compelling beneficiary stories, powerful testimonials, and engaging visuals. People give to people, not to abstract concepts. Your website must tell stories that resonate personally and build an emotional bridge between your work and your supporters.
Do: Ensure Seamless Integration with Your Tech Stack
To build modern, relationship-based communication, your website must "talk" to your other systems, especially your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. When a supporter donates or signs up for your newsletter on your site, that data should flow seamlessly into your CRM.
This integration avoids fragmented data and allows you to understand your supporters holistically. You can see their donation history, event attendance, and content engagement all in one place, enabling you to send personalized, relevant communications that deepen their loyalty. Our digital services focus on building this kind of integrated infrastructure, because it's essential for sustainable growth.
Design & Development: Tactical Do's and Don'ts
With a strong strategy in place, you can move on to the tactical decisions of building your site. These choices will determine both the external user experience and the internal team’s ability to keep the site vibrant and effective.
Do: Choose a Platform That Balances Flexibility and Usability
The website builder you choose is a critical decision.
- Platforms like Squarespace and Wix are known for their user-friendly interfaces, making them accessible for teams without deep technical expertise. They offer beautiful templates that can get you started quickly.
- A self-hosted WordPress site offers unparalleled flexibility and scalability, with a vast ecosystem of themes and plugins for nearly any function.
- Nonprofit-specific systems like Neon Websites offer tight integration with a CRM, creating a unified experience out of the box.
The key is finding the right balance for your organization. A user-friendly builder can help you avoid the "tech empathy gap," where a tool is too complex for the staff who need to use it daily. However, be wary of the "template trap"—a generic look that fails to capture your unique brand identity. The goal is a platform that allows you to create a differentiated, mission-aligned presence without creating an unmanageable burden for your team.
Don't: Let Your Website Become a Static Brochure
One of the most common failures is launching a website and then letting it sit idle for years. A static website tells the world that your organization is stagnant. Your website must be a living, evolving asset.
The best way to achieve this is by building a dynamic media hub—a blog, a resource center, a news section—at the core of your site. This is the home for your social impact content strategy. Regularly publishing fresh content not only gives your community a reason to return but also signals to search engines that your site is a relevant and active authority in your issue area. This is how you transform your digital presence from invisible to magnetic.
Do: Design for a Flawless Mobile Experience
This isn't just a suggestion; it's a requirement. The majority of your supporters will first encounter your brand on a smartphone. If your website is difficult to navigate, slow to load, or hard to read on a small screen, you’ve already lost their trust and attention. Every design decision, from font size to button placement, must be made with a mobile-first mindset.
Don't: Bury Your Call-to-Action
Activation must be effortless. Your "Donate," "Volunteer," and "Subscribe" buttons should be the most prominent, consistently placed elements on your site. Don't make people hunt for ways to support you. Integrate these CTAs naturally into your storytelling. After sharing a powerful impact story, immediately give the reader a way to contribute to that work. The donation experience itself should be seamless, secure, and on-brand, reinforcing trust at the most critical moment.
The Pitfalls: Strategic Don'ts to Avoid
Just as important as what you do is what you choose not to do. Avoiding these common strategic pitfalls will set your organization up for long-term success.
Don't: Treat Your Website as a Short-Term Project
A website is not a deliverable to be checked off a list. It is an ongoing commitment that must evolve alongside your mission. When an organization's website is "years out of date," it usually means their brand and strategy have evolved, but their most important digital asset hasn't kept pace. This creates a jarring disconnect for supporters. Budget for and prioritize ongoing maintenance, content updates, and strategic improvements. Viewing your digital presence as a long-term investment is central to building a truly resilient social impact brand.
Don't: Settle for a Generic, "Off-the-Shelf" Look
Your brand is your reputation, and your website is its primary expression. A cookie-cutter website built from a generic template communicates that your organization’s approach is also generic. You are working to solve complex problems, and your brand needs to reflect that unique value.
This is where thoughtful branding and design services make a difference. The choice of typography, color, imagery, and even the "feel" of how a user moves through the site all contribute to your brand perception. Your goal is to move from unremarkable to unforgettable, and a bespoke digital experience is essential to making that leap.
Don't: Isolate Your Website from Your Fundraising Strategy
Many nonprofits see their website as a marketing tool and their fundraising as a separate activity. This is a silo that hobbles both efforts. Your website is one of your most powerful fundraising tools. The storytelling builds the emotional case for support, the seamless donation forms facilitate the transaction, and the impact reporting closes the loop and nurtures donor retention. Integrating fundraising into your website strategy turns transactional asks into deeply meaningful opportunities for connection.
A successful nonprofit website is a strategic, integrated, and dynamic hub for your mission. It’s where you articulate your brand, build your community, and activate your supporters to help move your mission forward. By focusing on these do's and avoiding the common don'ts, you can build a digital presence that doesn't just inform, but inspires.
Ready to transform your nonprofit's digital presence from fragmented to integrated? Let's talk about how a strategic website can become the engine for your mission. Book a free strategy call with Cosmic today.