Nonprofit Website Examples

A nonprofit website has more audiences than most sites: donors who want to know their money is well spent, volunteers looking for a shift, people who need the organization's help, and partners, press, and job seekers. The good ones give each group a clear path from the first screen, with a donate button that is never more than one click away and a mission that is stated in a sentence. This page collects real nonprofit website examples grouped by type: large international charities, animal shelters and rescues, food banks, environmental and health organizations, education and arts nonprofits, faith-based and community groups, and UK charities. It then lists the pages and features every nonprofit site needs, breaks down the anatomy of a nonprofit homepage, and ends with a checklist. It is part of the website examples library.

Jump to a type: large charities · animal shelters · food banks · environmental and health · education and arts · faith-based and community · UK charities

Nonprofit website examples at a glance

Every site below is the official website of a real, currently operating nonprofit or charity. Each is broken down in more detail in the next section.

What a nonprofit website needs to do

Most people arrive at a nonprofit website with one of a few questions, and the site works when each one is answered in a click or two:

1. What do you do, and why? A one-sentence mission and the programs behind it
2. How can I help? Donate, give monthly, volunteer, fundraise, or advocate
3. Can I trust you with my money? Financials, annual reports, leadership, and where donations go
4. Is it working? Stories, impact pages, and news
5. Can you help me? Services, a helpline, or a "find help near you" search

Many nonprofits forget the fifth question. Food banks, health charities, and community services serve people who need help today, and the best sites in this list put that path in the header, not in the footer. In practice, a nonprofit website is a business website where the "sale" is a donation or a volunteer sign-up, and the trust signals are financial reports instead of reviews.

Nonprofit website examples by type

The descriptions below are limited to what is publicly observable on each site's homepage: its navigation, donate button and donation form, mission statement, impact and stories sections, volunteer and newsletter sign-ups, events, and links to annual reports and financials. Nothing here states donation totals, impact figures, ratings, rankings, or awards. Sites change often, especially around giving campaigns, so menus and features may differ when you visit.

Large international charities

Large charities run many programs at once, so their sites rely on mega menus and a homepage that repeats the donate ask several times. The patterns still scale down to a small organization.

charity: water: charitywater.org

Save the Children: savethechildren.org

American Red Cross: redcross.org

Habitat for Humanity: habitat.org

Animal shelter and rescue websites

Shelter sites sell two things at once: adoption and support. The animals are the content, so the best sites show real pets and real stories on the homepage, and keep adopt, foster, volunteer, and donate side by side.

Best Friends Animal Society: bestfriends.org

San Francisco SPCA: sfspca.org

Austin Pets Alive!: austinpetsalive.org

Food bank websites

A food bank site has two audiences who must never get in each other's way: neighbors who need food, and supporters who give food, money, or time. The best ones put "Find Food" in the header in plain words.

Feeding America: feedingamerica.org

City Harvest: cityharvest.org

SF-Marin Food Bank: sfmfoodbank.org

Environmental and health nonprofits

These organizations mix fundraising with education. Their sites carry a lot of information, so the navigation has to separate "learn about the issue" from "help us" and "get help".

The Nature Conservancy: nature.org

The Michael J. Fox Foundation: michaeljfox.org

Alzheimer's Association: alz.org

Education and arts nonprofits

Education and arts organizations have something many charities lack: the work itself is the best content. These sites show projects, programs, and student work rather than describing them.

DonorsChoose: donorschoose.org

Room to Read: roomtoread.org

826 National: 826national.org

Faith-based and community nonprofits

Faith-based and community organizations often operate as a network of local agencies. The national site's main job is to send people to the right local office, whether they want to help or need help.

Catholic Charities USA: catholiccharitiesusa.org

UK charity websites

UK charity sites follow the same patterns with a few local additions: Gift Aid, gifts in wills, charity shops, and lotteries appear in the giving menus, and the three below show their registered charity numbers in the footer.

Trussell: trussell.org.uk

Cancer Research UK: cancerresearchuk.org

Oxfam GB: oxfam.org.uk

Must-have pages and features for a nonprofit website

The examples above look very different, but they share the same core. These are the pages and features to plan before you think about design.

Donate button and donation form

Put a Donate button in the header of every page, in a contrasting color, and link it to a form that loads quickly. On the form, offer monthly and one-time options, a few preset amounts, and an "other amount" field. Trussell labels each preset amount with what it provides, which turns a number into an outcome. Keep the number of fields short, offer common payment methods, and send a receipt. If you use a third-party donation platform, keep its page styled like your site, so donors do not feel they have left.

Mission statement and homepage message

The first sentence on the homepage should say what you do and for whom. charity: water and Catholic Charities USA put the mission straight into the main headline. For copyable hero lines, see the nonprofit section of the welcome message examples, and for a story-driven homepage where the donor joins the cause, see the nonprofit pattern in the StoryBrand website examples.

Impact, stories, and transparency

Donors want proof without having to ask. Link the annual report, financial statements, and (in the United States) the Form 990 from the About menu and the footer, as Habitat for Humanity and SF-Marin Food Bank do. Pair those documents with stories of real people or animals, and keep numbers on the site sourced and dated. A stories or news section works like a small blog; blog website examples show how to organise posts by topic and date.

Volunteer and get-involved pages

Give volunteering its own page with the types of roles, the time commitment, how to sign up, and who to contact. Austin Pets Alive! separates fostering from volunteering, and City Harvest gives each way to help its own card and button. A short sign-up form beats a downloadable application.

Accessibility and mobile

Many visitors arrive from a social post or an email appeal on a phone. Check that the donate form, the menu, and any helpline number work on a small screen, that buttons are large enough to tap, and that text has enough contrast. Add translated pages for the languages your community uses, as SF-Marin Food Bank and Catholic Charities USA do.

The anatomy of a nonprofit homepage

Nonprofit homepages vary in style, but most reuse the same skeleton. The diagram below is an illustrative pattern, not a specific real site.

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| HEADER  Logo   About  Our Work  Get Involved  Get Help        |
|                                              [ Donate ]       |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| HERO                                                          |
|   [ photo of the people, animals, or place you serve ]        |
|   One-line mission: what you do and for whom                  |
|   [ Donate ]   [ Volunteer ]                                  |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?                                          |
|   I need help · I want to give · I want to volunteer          |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| OUR WORK                                                      |
|   One tile per program -> program page                        |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| IMPACT AND STORIES                                            |
|   One or two real stories · sourced, dated results ->         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| DONATE                                                        |
|   ( Monthly | One-time )  [$] [$$] [$$$] [Other]  [ Give ]    |
|   One line on what a gift pays for                            |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| WAYS TO HELP                                                  |
|   Volunteer · Fundraise · Events · Tribute · Legacy giving    |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| NEWSLETTER                                                    |
|   Email sign-up · what you will send and how often            |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| FOOTER  Address · Contact · Annual report · Financials ·      |
|         Tax ID or charity number · Privacy · Social           |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

The sections in order:

1. Header: logo, a short menu (About, Our Work, Get Involved, Get Help), and a Donate button
2. Hero: a real photo, the mission in one line, and the main actions
3. Help router: a short "how can we help you?" section for the main visitor tasks
4. Our work: one tile per program, each linking to its own page
5. Impact and stories: real stories and results, linked to their source
6. Donate: a short form with monthly and one-time options
7. Ways to help: volunteering, fundraising, events, tribute and legacy gifts
8. Newsletter: an email sign-up that says what subscribers will receive
9. Footer: address, contact details, annual report and financials, tax ID or registered charity number, policies, and social links

The real examples above show how far this skeleton stretches. Save the Children and Feeding America put the donation form high on the page; Trussell and Feeding America move the help router to the top; Best Friends Animal Society and 826 National fill the middle with stories and the work itself; and DonorsChoose replaces the generic donate section with a list of specific projects to fund.

Typical nonprofit site structure

Most small and mid-sized nonprofit sites are shallow: a handful of top-level sections, with programs and ways to give one level down. For more on choosing pages and navigation, see website structure examples.

NONPROFIT — shallow structure
example.org
+-- Home
+-- About
|   +-- Mission and history
|   +-- Team and board
|   +-- Annual reports and financials
+-- Our Work
|   +-- Program A
|   +-- Program B
|   +-- Stories / news
+-- Get Help
+-- Get Involved
|   +-- Volunteer
|   +-- Events
|   +-- Fundraise
+-- Ways to Give
|   +-- Donate (one-time and monthly)
|   +-- Tribute and memorial gifts
|   +-- Legacy, stock, and workplace giving
+-- Contact
+-- [ Donate ] button in the header on every page

Animal shelters add Adopt and Foster as top-level sections; food banks put Find Food first; networks add a local office finder; and organizations that do not provide direct services can drop Get Help.

Nonprofit website checklist

FAQ

Where to go next

A nonprofit website works when a visitor can understand the mission, find a way to help, and see where the money goes within seconds of landing. Start from the must-have pages and the homepage anatomy above, then borrow the specifics from the examples closest to your cause and size. For homepage copy, see welcome message examples and the story-led approach in StoryBrand website examples; for planning the pages and navigation, see website structure examples. To use a CMS, see WordPress website examples, and for more organization sites, browse business website examples and the full website examples library.