Nonprofit Website Trends: Forego flashy for functionality

The only part of a nonprofit under more pressure than its employees is its website. Nonprofit websites have to do and be a lot of things to many people. Accessibility, functionality, easy navigation, and a beautiful design are just a few considerations when building a cause-driven site. In this episode, Katie talks to Cliff Persaud of Kanopi Studios about what makes a great nonprofit website and what bells and whistles aren’t worth the draw on your bandwidth. 

Top trends for great nonprofit websites, including a “quick win.”

Cliff shares three attributes that all great nonprofit websites should feature:

1. Accessible, inclusive content
2. Lack of friction
3. Relevant imagery (It’s a quick win!)

While making your site fully accessible might take time and strategy, ensuring the imagery you use is aesthetically pleasing is an easy way to update your digital presence. Cliff recommends Unsplash for stunning and open license lifestyle imagery, and Katie suggested Canva for Nonprofits. Either way, making sure you use modern and high-resolution images is a must. 

The wrong way to be resource-intensive

There are many web design trends right now that are bad for business. Cliff warns against using several of these, including parallax, carousels, and animations. Not only are these elements distracting, but they can also be detractors for people who struggle with motion or vision, and they are often a significant draw on your site’s speed. These “resource intensive” elements might be flashy and on-trend, but they’re not worth the inconvenience to your audience (or you!).

Listen to the full episode to hear Cliff’s suggestions for when and how to use animation to make your site beautiful and functional. 

Meet Cliff Persaud

Cliff focuses his time managing and leading Kanopi’s cross-functional creative team and projects internally and for our clients. Whether he is leading the charge on behalf of the innovative team or partnering with other facets of the company, he delights in working with organizations to elevate their online presence, making complex challenges beautiful, functional, and optimized.  

With nearly 20 years of experience as a designer, instructor, and creative leader, Cliff is active in crafting user-first full lifecycle experiences from initial discovery through strategy, UX, and creative and technical development to create sites that excite our clients and fulfill their objectives.