Charities & the third sector
The website is the fundraising instrument, not the brochure.
This is the one sector where the site matters more than the search work, and the reason is simple: for most charities the website is where the money actually arrives.
Werehouse Media builds websites, search visibility and membership systems for UK charities, community interest companies, membership bodies and other third-sector organisations. For a charity the website usually matters more than the search work, because the site is the donation and sign-up mechanism. Every build targets WCAG 2.2 Level AA and ships with a published accessibility statement that names known shortfalls, because accessibility appears contractually in third-sector procurement and most small suppliers cannot evidence it.
Prices are published rather than hidden behind a call: websites from £995, multi-page builds and most charity sites from £1,495, redesigns from £1,495, an SEO audit (normally £495, free for a limited time), local and national search from £695 a month, and bespoke membership or supporter CRM builds quoted after a process audit (normally £495, free for a limited time). Full supplier due-diligence answers, including security posture, data protection position, continuity and source code escrow, are published on the capabilities page rather than supplied on request.
Why this sector inverts
Everywhere else, search leads. Here, the site does.
Across dentistry, law and accountancy, an established firm already has a website and the problem is being found. Charity is the exception, and it inverts: here the website itself is far more often the thing that needs the work.
That is not a quirk. For a professional firm the website is a credential; for a charity it is the machine. Donations, regular giving, membership sign-ups, event registrations, volunteer applications, campaign actions and grant-relevant impact reporting all happen on it. When it works badly, income falls directly and measurably rather than in some diffuse way.
What that changes about the brief
- The donation path is the product. Not a button in the header. How many steps, whether regular giving is offered before or after a one-off amount, whether Gift Aid is explained in one line or twelve, and what happens on a phone on a bad connection. This is conversion work, and small changes here are worth more than a redesign.
- Impact has to be legible in seconds. Donors and funders both decide fast. What the money does, expressed concretely, above the fold, without a video anyone has to press play on.
- Two audiences, one site. The donor and the beneficiary want opposite things from the same pages. Beneficiaries need help finding, in plain language, sometimes in distress, often on an old phone. Donors need confidence. Building for one and bolting on the other is the commonest failure in this sector.
- Search still matters, and it is rarely the hard part here. Very few charities compete seriously for it, so the ground is open. It is just not the first problem.
The website
Accessibility is not a feature here. It is a condition.
Third-sector and public-sector procurement writes accessibility into contracts, and grant funders increasingly ask. This is the sector where a supplier who cannot answer the question properly should be ruled out, and most cannot.
Everything built here targets WCAG 2.2 Level AA, designed in rather than audited on afterwards, and ships with a published accessibility statement naming the standard, the conformance level and the known shortfalls. That statement format is what the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations expect. This site's own accessibility statement is the working example, and the full posture (security, data protection, continuity, escrow, and which certifications are and are not held) is set out on the capabilities page rather than produced only when a procurement team asks.
What a charity site has to get right beyond that
- A donation flow that works on a five-year-old Android on 4G. Test it there rather than on a designer's laptop, because that is where a large share of giving happens.
- Plain language for beneficiaries. Reading age matters. So does not requiring a login, a form or a phone call to find out whether someone qualifies for help.
- Trustee, governance and financial transparency reachable without a hunt. Registered charity number, annual reports, and the Fundraising Regulator position where it applies.
- Data protection done properly. Consent for fundraising communications, retention periods that are real, and a supporter record that can actually be deleted when someone asks.
- Content the organisation can update without a purchase order. Campaigns move faster than agency retainers.
Larger organisations frequently arrive through a listed public pipeline rather than through search: framework listings, tender portals and sector networks. The website's job there is to survive due diligence and convert the enquiry, which is why the capabilities layer exists alongside these pages rather than instead of them.
The systems behind it
Membership CRM, and the admin that eats a small team.
Third-sector organisations run on a particular kind of administrative load: supporters, members, volunteers, grants, events and restricted funds, all tracked by too few people across too many spreadsheets.
Membership and supporter CRM
The sector's off-the-shelf products are genuinely good and frequently the right answer. The process audit will say so when it is. Bespoke earns its place in three situations: the organisation's real objects are not members and donations but something sector-specific the products do not model; per-seat licensing is disproportionate for a small team with a lot of volunteers; or a legacy system holds the historic data and nothing will speak to it. A bespoke membership CRM is quoted after the process audit, and what one includes is set out on the CRM and ERP page.
The automations that pay for themselves fastest
- Supporter onboarding. A first donation triggering a thank you, Gift Aid capture, and a genuine welcome sequence rather than silence followed by an appeal three months later.
- Membership renewals. Chased on a schedule that stops when someone renews. The single most common source of avoidable income loss in membership bodies.
- Grant and funder reporting. Numbers assembled from the systems that already hold them rather than rebuilt by hand each quarter by the person who can least spare the time.
- Volunteer administration. Applications, checks, availability and rotas, without a shared inbox and a spreadsheet doing the work of a system.
- Event and campaign registration feeding the supporter record rather than a separate list nobody reconciles.
Process audit free for a limited time (normally £495), single automations from £650, connected systems from £1,950. The reasoning behind that structure is on the automation page.
Pricing
Published, like everything else.
The same published prices as everywhere else on this site. Quoted in writing before anything starts, fixed, and never adjusted because of the sector on the invoice.
| What | Price | Usually right when |
|---|---|---|
| SEO audit and fix list | Normally £495, free for a limited time | You already have a site and nobody finds it. |
| Local SEO | From £695/month | You need to be found in your own town and the map pack matters. |
| Full search programme | From £995/month | Content, technical work, earned links and AI search visibility together. |
| Website build | From £995, multi-page £1,495 upwards | No site, or one that cannot be extended. |
| Website redesign | From £1,495 | A site with rankings worth protecting that has run out of road. |
| Process audit | Normally £495, free for a limited time | Before any system is quoted. |
| Bespoke application | From £4,500 | A portal, dashboard or internal tool with its own data model. |
| CRM or ERP build | Quoted after the audit | Your own records and stages, when no product fits the way the work runs. |
| Care | From £49/month | Anything live that needs watching. Never a condition of the build. |
| The whole chain | Scoped per organisation | The website, the enquiry handling and the internal system are better built as one thing than bought from three suppliers. |
The incumbent specialists in most sectors publish no prices at all and put a book-a-call form where the number should be. We would rather you saw the number first.
Straight answers
Common questions.
How much does a charity website cost?
Websites start at £995 and most charity sites land at £1,495 upwards, because they need real pages for causes, impact, governance and giving rather than a single page. A redesign of an existing site is from £1,495. Everything is quoted in writing and fixed before work starts. There is no charity discount as a headline, because published prices that everybody pays are more honest than a discount off a number nobody sees, but a genuinely small organisation should say so at the first conversation and the scope will be shaped to the budget rather than the budget stretched to the scope.
Can you meet WCAG 2.2 AA contractually?
Yes, and it is worth asking any supplier who says yes to show you a site that does it. Accessibility is designed in rather than audited on at the end, and every build ships with a published accessibility statement naming the target standard and listing known shortfalls rather than omitting them, which is the form the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations expect. The full position, including which certifications are and are not held, is on the capabilities page.
Do we need a bespoke membership CRM?
Usually not, and the process audit exists to establish that before anybody spends four figures. The third sector has genuinely good off-the-shelf membership and fundraising products, and where one of them fits, buying it is cheaper and better supported than building. Bespoke earns its cost when the products do not model what the organisation actually tracks, when per-seat pricing is disproportionate for a small team with many volunteers, or when historic data sits in something that will not connect. The audit that tells you which is normally £495 and free for a limited time.
Will you complete our supplier questionnaire?
Yes, including the questions where the answer is no. The capabilities page publishes the security posture, the UK GDPR position, the sub-processor list, the continuity and source code escrow answer, and a table stating plainly which certifications are held and which are not. Cyber Essentials is not currently held and can be obtained inside a normal procurement timeline where a contract requires it; ISO 27001 is not held and, at this size, that is a legitimate reason to choose a larger supplier.
Our income comes from grants and tenders, not search. Is SEO relevant?
Less than for most sectors, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. If the funding pipeline is listed and relational, the website's job is to survive due diligence and convert a warm visitor, not to acquire cold traffic. Search still earns its place for beneficiary-facing services, for individual giving and for recruitment, and very few charities compete for it, but if the money comes from three funders, fix the site and skip the retainer.
Who owns the site and the data?
The charity does, outright. Domain, hosting, content management, code and every third-party account are in the organisation's name, and the supporter data is exportable in a usable form on any day rather than on the way out. Nothing is licensed back and nothing stops working if the relationship ends. For larger builds a source code escrow arrangement can be written into the contract.
Worth reading next
Written for owners, not for marketers.
Written for this sector
What a charity website should cost
Cost bands, plus the eight things trustees should get in writing first.
Getting recommended by ChatGPT and AI search
What decides whether a funder's assistant names you.
Next step
Where does the money actually arrive?
If it is the website, that is where the work should go first. If it is three funders and a tender portal, say so and the brief changes entirely. Either answer is fine; guessing is not.