Budgeting For Your Charity Website – Helpful Hints for Charities 26

Budgeting for your charity website is important if you want to make sure you invest well in an online presence that clearly represents your cause and provides your charity’s target audience with a positive online experience.

We all know that charities need to run a tight ship when it comes to budgeting.  A clear website brief outlining requirements for your website and market research will help you
in working out the budget for your organisation’s website.

Painter anyone?

You could compare budgeting for your charity website to getting your house painted.  How much are you willing to pay and for what?  Are you getting your entire house painted? How many rooms altogether or just a select few? What type of paint? How many coats are needed?  What tools etc.? I am sure you see the point I am trying to make here.

There are many contractors who charge between a range of prices and offer a certain quality of work depending on the customer requirements.  The same applies for website providers.  There are a range of website companies who can offer you a range of services with a range of prices and it all does depend on what the client would like on their website.

Being Realistic Helps

That doesn’t mean you need to have a lot of money to have a fantastic website.  It’s about being realistic of what is affordable for your organisation and getting priorities in
order to make sure your website gets what it needs first.

Remember, website companies, aim to work with you! A good website design company will guide you and inform you of what can be done within your budget.  If it means some work can be done in phase two, three etc. – then great you have already started thinking about future development of the site.

Many people contact us and want an idea of what our starting prices are.  Whilst this is good in terms of researching companies to see what the market rate is, I do think it is
important to get some idea of what the client is looking for.  Giving a web design agency more information about what you are looking for means they can give you more of a closer
indication of cost.

A Few Helpful Points:

By no means is this list definitive.  Each project is individual but this list can help you think about the elements that can affect a website’s budget.

• How big is your site? Breaking your website down in a site structure is a good way to present this.
• What type of design are you looking for?
• How many design iterations would you like to see?
• What type of functionality do you need?
• Is there any bespoke functionality required?
• Have you thought about ongoing costs such as website maintenance,
  website updates, security updates, server maintenance
• Have you thought about your infrastructure, purchasing your domain
  name or who will host the website – is that included within your budget or is
  that additional to the actual website project?
• What will you need in terms of content, a copy writer, stock
  images, photographer, video etc.?
• What is your timescale for the project?
• Believe it or not, considering whether your budget is plus VAT or
  inclusive of VAT is valuable information too.
• Are you willing to break down your website project into phases, in
  case your budget is not enough to incorporate all your requirements?
• Are there any other parties involved in the design or development
  of the site?
• Is there some flexibility in your budget in case of changes during
  the project life cycle?
• Future developments for the website

Summary

Do your research, think about your target audience, think about what they would expect to see and get in touch with some website agencies that have worked with others in your sector and see what they are offering.

What your charity can afford to budget for the project can make a big difference in the return you get for your investment. As I said, it doesn’t have to be masses of money, but it does need to be realistic and relate to all of your requirements.