Colibri Charity is a demo developed for non-profit, charity organizations who need a solid presence in the online medium. In this medium, well-designed charity websites could be the means to reach a broader audience and collect funds at a larger level.
More than that, having a charity website is the main condition for online fundraising.
Get .org domains for charity websites
ORG comes from organization. These extensions are specific to organizations and such domains have higher authority in Google. A .org domain for your website ensures you have a good start with your organization, and tells people what your website is about, right off the bat.
The platform you choose has to be easy to work with
Before you sit down and deploy extensive work for creating a new website for your non-profit organization: be sure you’ve done the right choice, regarding the platform you build the website with.
Colibri is such a platform. All setup is in the Customizer, from components to pre-defined blocks to even a dedicated template: the charity website template.
Here’s what you’ll work with, for your Colibri charity website:
Structure of charity websites
Such a website needs a clear structure, and the message should be direct and touching. No extra words, no promotional material should stay in the way of clearly making the call for people to donate for a good cause.
The charity website template has a few key items in the main menu, and that’s all users need to navigate its pages. Some items are associated to the same page (the homepage). These are sections of presentation that are brought forward in the main menu. Hence, these sections are visible enough and susceptible of being clicked more and gaining trust for the organization website.
The multiple items of the homepage included in the demo menu are: Testimonials section, Projects section and Donate section. That is, the most important ones, beyond an organization overview.
Color scheme with predominant white
The color scheme for the Colibri charity template has white as predominant color. White is used both as accent color (e.g. CTA buttons) and for negative space. In fact, white is a non-color which is meant not to influence through emotions, in any way. Users are free to donate or not, depending on how trustful they judge the website and its content.
Thus, it’s of much more importance to have relevant and trustful content than a lively color scheme, for your non-profit organization. The color combination in the template is neutral, and leaves visitors judge the website by its words.
Hero of charity websites – an impactful image
Whereas the color scheme is neutral, you can add power to words by using images. And the Hero is the first and most important place where an image can really make an impact. This is what the Colibri charity template teaches you: how to use a photo being worth 1,000 words.
Actually, it’s the beginning of your story…
Replace the default with a more than equally impactful image, and the first impression will be a good one. Thus, you make sure visitors continue to explore the website.
Title and subtitle (put your story into words)
The title and subtitle of the homepage “translate” the Hero image into meaningful words. Keep in mind it’s a new story for those who land on the page and want to donate. So, be concise, be expressive, be convincing, be touching and be authentic.
The title and adjacent phrase supporting it should be at least as eloquent as the one suggested by the Colibri template:
Use this example as a source of inspiration, and write your own message.
As components, you only need a Heading and a text element. The graphics and text color are easy to adjust, from the Typography, Text color and Text Shadow options.
It’s time to add a Call-to-Action
This means, for your users: “It’s time to donate now”. And it means you need a CTA button after the title and subtitle of your website. You have everything set up in the Colibri template:
By default, the button has a white background, and on purpose. On hover, the button takes the color of the heading and subheading text. And it signals users they are on the point of taking action. You can change this, or you can leave it as such, if convenient.
A Donate Now button in the website Hero starts a donation funnel right into the homepage. People who already know of your organization or are familiar with its name/activity can proceed directly to donating.
Current and ongoing activities
This section ties the organization with its audience. It tells people what activities you organize, and what events they can take part to. It also encompasses the organization vision: it’s an expressive way of telling users what you do, and how you do it right now.
Also, it’s an invitation of new users to join the community and participate to fundraising.
You’ll find a grid layout for this section, and it includes: a representative image, a title and a short description for each activity:
Obviously, if you need another format for presenting your activities calendar, you can use different components and a different layout, in Colibri. Or you can keep the same format as in the charity website template. In this latter case, you only need to replace the photos and text with your own.
Show past projects and reinforce trust
This is one of the homepage sections with related item in the menu. It’s a section destined to present past projects the organization was involved in. And it’s a section meant to reinforce trust.
Your non-profit organization needs a history. And this history unfolds in a masonry gallery like this:
The gallery includes multiple photos of different dimensions. By default, the images are set to open in a lightbox. You can change this and choose to link to media file or link to attachment page.
Please note that a trustful organization has a history. Even if a minimal one, and your activities are of recent dates. Gather all you can include in this section, and try not to omit it in designing your own charity website.
Future events section in charity websites
As important as the organization history is its events calendar. What will you do in the near future, when and how? This tells a bit more of your direction, and your charity activities plan.
It’s essential for users who donate to know what they donate for. Also, it’s an invite for website visitors to join the community and take part in future charitable events.
As a key section, this couldn’t miss from the Colibri template:
Remember the importance of using impactful images? Colibri shows it all along the website pages and sections, and guides you to take it into account when inserting your own photos.
You can, and are encouraged to give details about the events, such as: where they take place, what hour they are set for, who the team leader is and who will manage the good run of the event.
You can add as many sections as you need, according to your activities calendar. And the Colibri options to customize them don’t limit you in designing these sections as best you want.
For instance, you can add CTA buttons or add some interactivity, to increase commitment to participate.
Icons related to charity activities
Last, but not least, you can customize icons. This amounts to customizing every detail in the website to pixel-perfection.
The tool gives you the right options when you need them, at every stage in the design process. You’ll see you have them at hand, when you need them for your site design. This is the case with icons. You can choose icons that fit a charity organization, like shown in the template:
You have 8+ icons libraries. From them, you can select the most appropriate ones, and include them in your lists. Or you can use the already existing icons in the template.
As a conclusion
If you start building charity websites, you should remember this: Colibri is just the right tool to simplify the process and lets you focus on activities that count most for the organization. In designing the website, you’ll see the appropriate options at hand, ready to support you in quickly and professionally presenting your non-profit organization. Consider the advice in this article and the website-building process will be simple and fast. And so will increase your chances to be visible to a large audience that’s willing to help.
