Starting a nonprofit website does not have to be a huge undertaking. By following the steps outlined below, you can have a beautiful web presence up and running in under a week. Here is how to start a nonprofit website.
1. Register a domain name. Your domain name is your web address URL (i.e. www.nonprofitcms.org). I usually recommend people to register names on GoDaddy.com. It is easy and cost effective. Cost: $10
2. Find a nonprofit web design company. There are a lot of them out there but few who have really good experience building nonprofit websites. Make sure to ask for references and ensure that your design company is putting you on a Content Management System (CMS)…preferably WordPress. Cost: Free to $4000 for a custom design. $4000+ for consulting work.
3. Send out email blasts. Sign up for VerticalResponse.com for sending out email blasts to your supporters. VerticalResponse gives 10,000 free emails per month for nonprofit organizations! We receive no kickback for referring people here. Cost: Free
4. Accept online donations. Sign up for either networkforgood.com or paypal.com. NetworkForGood is the best solution of the two and gives you robust reporting and a donor management system. PayPal is good if you are looking for a quick cheap way to accept online payments/donations. Cost: Free to $30/month
5. Get website hosting. Here at NonprofitCMS.org use cloud technology to host all of our websites and charge $30/month for hosting, backups, and security updates to WordPress.
These are the essential items for starting a website, for more information on how to start a nonprofit website we recommend reading some of the posts mentioned below.