How to Plan a Nonprofit Website Development Project From Start to Finish
Nonprofit website development is much easier when you treat the website as a project with defined goals, responsibilities, and stages, not simply a collection of pages that need to be designed and built.
Nonprofit websites need to serve donors, volunteers, program participants, staff, partners, and the broader community. It also needs to connect with donation platforms, CRMs, email marketing tools, event systems, membership databases, forms, and other software. Without proper planning, those requirements can turn into delays, unexpected costs, and technical problems later down the road.
The good news is that you don’t need to figure everything out at once.
The Nonprofit Website Development Process at a Glance
Before getting into the details, here’s what a typical project looks like:
- Define the website’s goals
- Identify audiences and user needs
- Document technical requirements
- Choose the platform and technology
- Plan the website structure
- Prepare and organize content
- Plan integrations and functionality
- Set up the development environment
- Build and configure the website
- Migrate or add content
- Test the website
- Prepare for launch
- Launch the website
- Maintain and improve the site
The exact process will vary depending on the size and complexity of your nonprofit, but the principle remains the same. Make important decisions before they become expensive to change.
1. Define What the Website Needs to Accomplish
Why does your nonprofit need this website?
Don’t start with which pages you want or what theme to buy. Determine what the website needs to achieve.
Your goals might include:
- Increasing online donations
- Helping people access programs or services
- Recruiting volunteers
- Increasing awareness of your mission
- Providing educational resources
- Publishing research and reports
- Supporting membership
- Generating inquiries or referrals
- Providing information to funders and partners
- Sharing news and organizational updates
You may have several goals, but they shouldn’t all have equal priority.
For example, Candid is a nonprofit that provides other nonprofits with the training and resources they need to do good. Rather than asking for donations, they provide access to information that nonprofits, donors, and the media can use to advance their missions.
TIP: Define Success Before Development Begins
Where possible, establish measurable outcomes.
For example:
- Increase online donations
- Increase completed volunteer applications
- Reduce calls asking basic service questions
- Increase newsletter signups
- Improve completion rates for contact forms
- Increase organic search traffic
These goals will become useful later when evaluating whether the new website is actually working.
2. Identify Your Audiences and Their Needs
Your nonprofit probably doesn’t have just one type of website visitor.
Depending on your organization, your audiences would include:
- Donors
- Program participants
- Volunteers
- Members
- Funders
- Partners
- Researchers
- Journalists
- Staff
- Community members
Don’t just list these audiences. Determine what each group is trying to accomplish.
For instance:
Audience | What They Need To Do |
Donor | Make a donation |
Volunteer | Find opportunities and apply |
Program participant | Determine eligibility and access services |
Funder | Review programs, impact, and financial information |
Partner | Find contact or referral information |
Researcher | Find reports, publications, or resources |
This becomes particularly important when making development decisions. Your website’s navigation, page structure, forms, search functionality, and calls to action should support these user tasks.
A common mistake is organizing the website around the nonprofit’s internal departments rather than what visitors are actually trying to find.
3. Document the Technical Requirements
This is where a nonprofit website project starts becoming a development project rather than a design exercise.
Before selecting a platform or beginning development, create a list of everything the website needs to do.
Consider requirements such as:
- Online donations
- Contact forms
- Volunteer applications
- Event registration
- Membership functionality
- Resource libraries
- Blog or news publishing
- Search
- User accounts
- Private or restricted content
- Multilingual content
- Accessibility requirements
- Analytics
- SEO functionality
- Email marketing
- CRM integration
- Payment processing
- Social media feeds
- Third-party forms
- Maps or location tools
Also identify what software the organization already uses.
For example, your nonprofit may already have a CRM, donor management system, email platform, event management software, or membership database. The website may need to exchange information with these systems.
Planning those integrations early is important because the technology behind them can influence your platform choice.
TIP: Create a Requirements Document
A simple requirements document can include:
Must have: Required for launch
Should have: Important but not launch-critical
Nice to have: Useful improvements that can come later
This helps prevent scope creep and keeps the project focused.
4. Choose the Right Website Platform
The right platform for your nonprofit website depends on how the site will be used, who will manage it, and what functionality you need. A platform that works well for a small organization with a few annual updates may be a poor fit for a nonprofit publishing content every week.
Before choosing, consider who will maintain the website after launch, how often content will change, what integrations you need, and whether you need custom functionality.
Here’s a quick look at some common options:
Platform | Pros | Cons | Best for |
WordPress | Flexible, highly customizable, large ecosystem of plugins and developers, easy for staff to update content | Requires ongoing updates, security management, and maintenance | Nonprofits that regularly publish or update content and want flexibility |
Wix | Easy to use, visual editor, hosting and technical infrastructure are handled for you | Less flexible for complex functionality, can become limiting as requirements grow | Small nonprofits with relatively simple websites |
Squarespace | Clean templates, easy content management, hosting and security included | Less customization and flexibility than WordPress | Organizations that prioritize simplicity and have straightforward website needs |
Webflow | Strong design control, good performance, visual development tools | Can have a steeper learning curve for content managers, especially for more complex sites | Nonprofits that need greater design control without building a fully custom platform |
Custom website | Maximum control over functionality, architecture, and integrations | More complex to build and maintain; changes often require developer involvement | Larger or highly specialized organizations with unique technical requirements |
Choose the technology that best fits the organization’s current requirements and future needs.
5. Plan the Website Structure
Now you can finally determine what needs to be built.
Create a sitemap showing the main pages, subpages, and relationships between them.
A typical nonprofit website might include:
- Home
- About
- Programs or Services
- Impact
- Get Involved
- Donate
- Resources
- News
- Events
- Contact
But don’t automatically copy this structure.
The sitemap should reflect your organization’s goals and your audiences’ needs.
If visitors frequently ask, “Do I qualify for this program?” that information may deserve a prominent page or section. If your organization publishes extensive research, you may need a searchable resource library.
Planning the structure before development gives your developers a clear blueprint and helps prevent important information from becoming buried later.
6. Prepare Content Before Development
Content is one of the biggest potential bottlenecks in a website project.
Development can move quickly, but if the organization hasn’t provided the content, the project can stall. Before development gets too far along, determine what content the website will need and who is responsible for creating, reviewing, and approving it.
For a new website, this may mean creating content from scratch, including:
- Page copy
- Program and service descriptions
- About and mission information
- Staff and leadership profiles
- Impact stories and statistics
- Calls to action
- Blog or news content
- Resource materials
- Images, videos, and other media
- Forms and supporting instructions
For an existing website, start with a content audit to determine what should happen to the material you already have:
- Which pages should be kept?
- Which pages need to be rewritten or updated?
- Which should be combined?
- Which should be removed?
- Which images or documents need updating?
- Which information is outdated?
- Which URLs need to be redirected?
Assign Content Responsibilities
Don’t assume that someone will “get to the content” during development. Assign specific people to write, review, and approve content, and establish deadlines for each stage.
It’s also important to agree on who has final approval. Nonprofit websites often involve multiple stakeholders, and waiting for feedback from an entire board or committee can quickly delay a project.
Plan Content Migration for an Existing Website
If you’re replacing an existing website, content migration should be treated as a separate project task. Create an inventory of the current pages and decide whether each one will be migrated, rewritten, consolidated, redirected, or removed.
Planning this before launch helps preserve useful content, avoid broken links, and maintain existing search visibility.
7. Plan Integrations and Functionality
Now it’s time to get specific about how the website will connect to the rest of your technology stack.
For example:
Website → Donation platform
Visitors can make donations without creating a completely separate experience.
Website → CRM
Form submissions or other interactions can be passed into your constituent database.
Website → Email
Newsletter signups can automatically be added to your mailing list.
Website → Event
Visitors can browse events and register online.
Website → Membership
Members can access accounts, resources, or other member-specific functionality.
Every integration should have a defined purpose.
Don’t add integrations simply because they’re available. Each one adds another technical dependency that may need to be maintained, updated, secured, and tested.
8. Set up the Technical Foundation
Before development begins, establish the infrastructure the website will run on.
This may include:
- Domain registration
- DNS configuration
- Web hosting
- SSL certificate
- CMS installation
- Database configuration
- Staging environment
- Email configuration
- Security controls
- Backup system
- Analytics
- Search engine tools
For an existing website, this stage may also involve deciding how the new site will coexist with the current site during development.
A staging environment is particularly useful. It gives developers a place to build and test the new website without disrupting the live site.
This is also the point where ownership needs to be clear. Your nonprofit should know who controls the domain, hosting account, DNS, website administrator accounts, and other critical infrastructure.
9. Develop the Website
With the requirements, structure, content plan, platform, and technical environment in place, development can begin.
The development phase typically involves:
- Building page templates
- Configuring the CMS
- Creating reusable components
- Setting up navigation
- Adding forms
- Connecting integrations
- Configuring search
- Implementing SEO settings
- Setting up analytics
- Implementing accessibility requirements
- Configuring security
- Optimizing performance
- Building custom functionality where required
This is where good planning pays off.
If the project requirements were clearly defined earlier, developers can focus on building rather than repeatedly stopping to answer basic questions about what the website should do.
10. Add and Migrate the Content
Once the development environment is ready, content can be entered or migrated into the new website.
This includes:
- Page copy
- Images
- Videos
- Staff profiles
- Program information
- Resources
- Blog posts
- Events
- Forms
- Downloads
- Impact statistics
Content should be entered into the actual website structure rather than treated as an afterthought.
This is also a good time to check formatting, links, headings, images, metadata, and other page-level details.
A website can technically be “complete” while still being unusable because important content hasn’t been properly entered or organized.
11. Test Everything Before Launch
Never launch a nonprofit website simply because the pages look finished.
Testing should cover both the front end that visitors see and the back end that staff use to manage the website.
Test the Website on Different Devices
Check:
- Desktop computers
- Laptops
- Tablets
- Smartphones
- Different screen sizes
- Major browsers
Test Functionality
Check every:
- Form
- Donation button
- Payment process
- Search function
- Menu
- Link
- Download
- Event registration
- Newsletter signup
- Integration
- Login
- Call to action
Test Accessibility
Accessibility should be considered throughout development, not added as a final checkbox. Important areas include headings, keyboard navigation, color contrast, alternative text, captions, form labels, and clear language.
Test Redirects and SEO
For an existing website, check:
- URL redirects
- Page titles
- Meta descriptions
- Canonical URLs
- XML sitemap
- Robots directives
- Indexing settings
- Broken links
- 404 pages
Test Performance and Security
Also verify:
- Page loading speed
- Image optimization
- SSL
- Backups
- User permissions
- Software updates
- Security configuration
A final pre-launch checklist can prevent small technical issues from becoming public problems.
12. Prepare for Launch
The launch itself should be treated as a project phase, not a single button you press.
Before switching the site over, confirm that:
- Content has been approved
- Stakeholders have signed off
- Forms have been tested
- Donations have been tested
- Integrations are working
- Redirects are configured
- Analytics is working
- Search engines can access the site
- Backups are available
- SSL is active
- DNS information is ready
- The old website has been backed up
- Someone is available to address issues after launch
For a website migration, consider launching during a period when your team and technical support are available to monitor the site.
13. Launch the Website
When everything is ready, the new website can go live.
Depending on the project, launch may involve:
- Putting the existing site into a controlled state
- Taking a final backup
- Moving the website to production
- Updating DNS if necessary
- Confirming SSL
- Testing the live website
- Testing forms and donations again
- Checking redirects
- Verifying analytics
- Monitoring for errors
Don’t assume that a successful deployment means the project is finished.
The first few hours and days after launch are an important monitoring period.
14. Plan for Ongoing Website Maintenance
A website isn’t finished when it launches.
It needs ongoing maintenance to remain secure, functional, accurate, and useful.
Ongoing nonprofit website maintenance may include:
- Software updates
- Plugin updates
- Security monitoring
- Backups
- Broken-link checks
- Content updates
- Staff and program changes
- Form testing
- Performance monitoring
- Analytics reviews
- Accessibility checks
- SEO improvements
- Domain and SSL renewals
Your project plan should identify who is responsible for these tasks before launch, not after something breaks.
This is particularly important for nonprofits with small teams. A website that requires technical expertise every time a simple change is needed can quickly become a burden.
Your Nonprofit Website Project Checklist
Use this as a quick reference when planning your next project:
Before Development
- Define website goals
- Identify priority audiences
- Define user tasks and desired actions
- Document technical requirements
- Identify integrations
- Choose the website platform
- Assign a project manager
- Establish decision-making authority
- Create the sitemap
- Audit existing content
- Create a content plan
- Establish the budget and timeline
During Development
- Set up hosting and staging
- Configure the CMS
- Build templates and components
- Develop functionality
- Configure integrations
- Add or migrate content
- Configure SEO
- Implement accessibility requirements
- Configure security and backups
Before Launch
- Test forms
- Test donations
- Test integrations
- Test mobile devices
- Test browsers
- Check accessibility
- Check page speed
- Check links
- Configure redirects
- Verify analytics
- Verify SSL
- Get final approval
After Launch
- Monitor the website
- Check for errors
- Monitor forms and donations
- Confirm search engine indexing
- Update software
- Maintain backups
- Review analytics
- Keep content current
- Plan ongoing improvements
Download the checklist here.
A Successful Website Starts Before the First Line of Code
The biggest mistake in nonprofit website development is treating development as the first step.
It isn’t.
The development team needs to know what the website is supposed to accomplish, who it serves, what it needs to do, what systems it needs to connect to, what content it needs, and how it will be maintained before they start building.
When those decisions are made early, development becomes much more predictable. Your nonprofit can avoid unnecessary rework, reduce delays, control scope, and ultimately launch a website that works for both your organization and the people it serves.
And once the website is live, the project doesn’t end. Ongoing website management and maintenance are what keep the technology secure, the content current, and the website useful over time.
For nonprofits without a dedicated web team, having one partner handle the technical pieces, from domains, DNS, hosting, SSL, development, integrations, and maintenance, can make the entire process considerably easier.
Need Help Managing the Technical Side?
Nonprofit WebOps provides full-stack website solutions for nonprofits, from domains, DNS, SSL, hosting, development, integrations, security, and maintenance to ongoing website support, all at a flat monthly rate.