If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve been tasked with “sorting out the website”. I appreciate that it’s not always the most enjoyable job, and in many cases it’s a big project to add for someone who’s already wearing a lot of other hats. Your website is your shopfront and a sizable investment, so there’s some pressure to get it right.
So, how do you actually choose the right agency to build your charity website? One that understands your world, your constraints, and your audiences — and won’t ghost you the minute the final invoice is paid?
Let’s break it down.
1. Start with what you need, not what they’re selling
Before you start Googling “charity web design agency” and disappearing down a rabbit hole of pretty portfolios, get clear on what you actually need.
Do you want more donations? Volunteers? Referrals from partners? Do you need your site to act as a resource hub, or a simple shop window? Do you have a CRM, finance, or other back-office system that the website needs to send data to?
If you don’t have that clarity yet, that’s fine. But an honest agency should help you figure it out before they start talking about design. A good one will ask questions that make you stop and think. A bad one will jump straight into showing you shiny templates.
2. Look for agencies that actually understand the charity world
A charity website isn’t functionally different from a commercial one — in that respect, any decent website agency will have the skills to build a straightforward charity site.
But be aware that the workplace culture in the charity sector is different. That’s why many of us prefer to spend our careers here. It’s (on average) a friendlier, more compassionate, and more collaborative working style — and it’s worth making sure your working culture aligns with the agency’s.
I’ve worked for a charity that partnered with commercial (i.e. non-charity) agencies, and there can be a bit of a culture clash. Those agencies tend to operate in a more commercially driven way and, in my experience, are more likely to nail every detail down in an original specification document and try to charge extra if you deviate from it.
It’s also valuable to work with an agency that knows what kind of content works well for charity sites and audiences: what kind of imagery is (and isn’t) compelling, which fundraising platforms are worth integrating rather than building your own, and what the accessibility best practices are.
These days there are plenty of charity-specialist web design agencies out there, so you’ve got options.
3. How much experience do you and your team have in commissioning and building websites?
Be honest here.
If you haven’t commissioned many charity websites before, you may not know exactly what you want — and that’s perfectly normal. That’s another reason to work with a charity specialist agency who can help fill in the gaps in your knowledge and experience. You’re better off looking for flexibility and helpful suggestions. Be wary of scoping everything out in fine detail if you’re still figuring things out or haven’t got approval from the powers that be.
If you’ve built plenty of charity sites before, you might prefer a bigger agency or one that works within a stricter project management framework.
4. What size of agency should you work with?
I’d recommend working with one that roughly matches the size of your (often impromptu) website “team”. It can be a bit intimidating in meetings if there’s only one person from your charity and three or four agency representatives. And vice versa — if you’ve got a bigger internal team, you might feel more comfortable working with a larger agency setup.
If you’ve got a healthy budget, that can buy you more resources — usually more specialist designers, developers, and account managers — from a bigger agency. But a smaller-budget project is never likely to be a bigger agency’s priority.
In my experience as a client, larger agencies can be less flexible. They’ve got those teams of specialist developers, designers, and account managers to pay for, and need to plan work so everyone is scheduled in advance. It means that sometimes you’re working to their timetable, not yours.
In small and medium charities, there are inevitably times when something else comes up — one of the other balls you’re juggling needs attention and the website has to take a back seat. Those might be the weeks the agency had planned to work on your project, so you can find yourself pushed to the back of the queue or charged extra for missing a milestone.
Bigger agencies also tend to use more formal project management tools because they have multiple staff to coordinate. That might suit you well, but sometimes that means learning their software (like Asana) — another ball to juggle.
Those tools definitely have their place, especially on larger projects. But if you’re happier doing your communication over email rather than raising support tickets, that should be an option too.
5. Find out who you’ll actually be working with
This one’s big.
Some agencies have layers of people between you and the person doing the work — salespeople, account managers, project coordinators, middle managers — each adding their own interpretation of what you said.
It’s vital that you get to meet the person (or people) delivering the project before committing. That usually takes the form of a Zoom meeting — the days of in-person presentations are mostly gone. It’s nice to meet the salesperson or account manager (who might be the same person), but they’re not the ones doing the work. They’re the conduit between you and the designers/developers.
Whoever your day-to-day contact is, make sure you’ve got a good working relationship with them and that you trust they have your best interests at heart. If they’re not the ones doing the actual work, you have to factor in the Chinese whispers and the inevitable “I’ll pass that on and get back to you next week” delays that come from communicating through a messenger.
6. Make sure they build on something sustainable (and preferably open source)
Most agencies specialise in one or two content management systems (CMS). The choice of CMS is one of the most crucial factors in a web project, and it’s not one to overlook just because you get a good feeling about the agency.
For most charities, WordPress is still the best platform out there. It’s flexible, widely supported, and you don’t need a degree in computer science to edit a page.
(Disclaimer: we’re bound to say that, as we specialise in WordPress!)
But ask around — see what fellow charities are using and what they recommend.
I’d be hesitant about building a site on a legacy open-source CMS like Joomla, Django, or Drupal. Those platforms are becoming increasingly antiquated, and you’ll find it harder to source developers who can work with them.
Platforms like Webflow and Squarespace are more modern competitors to WordPress, and they’re worth looking into. My reservation is that they aren’t open source and don’t offer the same flexibility or future-proofing as WordPress. Still, they’re probably a better bet than the outdated open-source platforms above.
Some agencies have their own bespoke or proprietary CMS systems. For me, that’s an instant red flag, regardless of how cheap the sites are or how nice they look. If you’re locked into a proprietary system, your website and its content are hostages to fortune. If the agency ramps up prices or takes weeks to respond, you have no other choice but to put up with it.
The “Raising IT” agency and its “free” charity websites are a classic cautionary tale. Some of those clients are tiny community charities paying eye-wateringly high annual fees (£5–10k) for a product that was never suited to them in the first place.
Competition is a good thing in the website world — it keeps costs low and service standards high. If you’re not happy with your site, you should be able to take it elsewhere for support.
Do WordPress websites look better or worse than others?
No. The graphic design of a site is mostly independent of the platform it’s built on. Some WordPress sites look beautiful, some are pretty awful — that’s true for every CMS. Don’t get attached to a platform just because you like the look of a site built with it.
But not all WordPress sites are created equal. Some agencies load them up with unnecessary plugins, page builders, and bespoke code that locks you in forever. You want something that’s:
- Easy for staff to update
- Secure and well maintained
- Portable (so you’re not stuck with the same developer forever)
7. Who will own your content, domain, and hosting?
You should.
Your domain name is a crucial piece of intellectual property — it controls your website and probably your emails too. By all means, let an agency or developer access it if needed (changing settings isn’t for the faint-hearted), but they should never own or control it, or charge you for updates.
The same goes for your web hosting — ideally, it should be independent of the agency that built your site.
It’s also no good developing your website on an open-source CMS if you don’t have full access to it. The agency should give you administrator-level access in case you ever need it. You won’t use it day-to-day, but it should be available — for free.
Twice in the last year, I’ve worked with clients who had to pay extra to their existing agency to export their own content because they didn’t technically “own” their site. One of those cases involved one of the biggest and most famous charity website agencies. You’re effectively paying a ransom to free your content — which undermines the whole point of open source.
Some agencies claim this is for security reasons (so clients can’t accidentally break things), but make sure you know where you stand from the start. It only takes 30 seconds to add or promote an admin user account, so it’s not something you should be charged for.
Ask these questions up front. Get it in writing if you need to.
8. Think beyond launch day
Your website isn’t “done” the day it goes live.
It’ll need updates, tweaks, security patches, and the occasional bit of content support — so ask what happens after launch.
It’s inevitable that once a site goes live, the agency moves on to new projects — we all have bills to pay. But when you need support, will you get that same friendly human to talk to, or will you be logging tickets in a faceless system? How much will that cost? What’s the turnaround time?
The ongoing support is just as important as the initial build. Anecdotally, this is where the vast majority of charities feel let down by their agencies. Most complaints aren’t “our website wasn’t built properly”, but:
- “The agency takes too long to respond or make changes.”
- “It costs us a lot every time we want to update something.”
- “We’re looking for a different agency to rebuild our site because the existing one doesn’t seem to care about us.”
Ask what the ongoing support options are, how much they cost, and if you can speak to some of the agency’s long-term clients — the ones whose sites were built two, five, or more years ago. You might spend a few months building your website, but it should last you 5–10 years. The vast majority of your relationship with an agency will be after launch, not before it.
