What makes a good website for a charity or social enterprise?

A good website doesn’t actually start with the design; it starts with being honest about what you're trying to achieve. Before you think about colours or typefaces or layouts, you need to be clear about what you stand for and how you want to talk to people. Without that foundation – your basic values and a sense of who you are – even the most expensive website will feel somewhat empty. It’s the behind-the-scenes work that gives the site its structure and its soul.

Planning out your content before you start building saves a lot of time and frustration later on. This is usually the best moment to look at your old content with a critical eye. Most organisations carry around "legacy" text – old pages and blog posts that don't really represent them anymore. Building a useful site often means being brave enough to bin the stuff that’s just taking up space.

The Carr Fenton Foundation website

Once there’s a structure in place, you can start looking at how the site actually functions. This is where you decide how the pages connect and what specific job each one is supposed to do. For charities and social enterprises, this is more than about making things look tidy – it’s about making sure your impact is easy to see and your stories feel real. It’s about ensuring that someone looking for help or information can find it in a couple of clicks.

When all these pieces come together, the site stops being just a digital brochure and starts being a tool that furthers your cause. Whether you’re just starting to rethink your brand or you’re ready to build a new site from the ground up, we can help you get the basics right. If you’re not sure where to begin, a quick discovery session is usually the best way to get things moving. Get in touch.