Fundraising with Squarespace: Building a Non-profit Site
When you operate a charity or non-profit organization, a high-quality website is a game-changer.
You can use it to tell people about your values, promote fundraising events, and even take donations online!
Here’s everything you need to know about using Squarespace for your non-profit.
Why is Squarespace so good for charities?
We’ve already looked at why Squarespace is a fantastic option if you run a business, but what if you run a non-profit? Here are a few reasons why you should consider Squarespace for your content management system.
It’s easy to use
When you’re busy running a charity, you don’t have much time to get to grips with building and maintaining a website. You need something you can update quickly.
Squarespace is well-known for its ease of use. Choose a ready-made template, change the font and colors, and add blocks that contain images, photo galleries, and videos. You can also use Fluid Engine to move elements around your pages.
Plus, Squarespace scales as you do. If you need to add new features or sections to your site, you can quickly slot them in without having to completely overhaul it.
It helps you get noticed
We hate to be the ones to say it, but you need to be competitive when you run a charity. You have to stand out from the crowd and encourage people to donate to you.
One of the best ways to stand out is through search engine optimization, or SEO. SEO is all about enhancing your website so you’re more likely to rank on the first page of the search engine results.
Squarespace has a lot of features that make ranking for the right words and phrases easy. You get a free SSL certificate and mobile-responsive templates, which can give you a boost in the search engine results.
It also automatically generates structured data for you, which you can use to give the search engines more context about your pages.
It looks professional
Trust and authenticity are more important than ever in the charity sector. If you want people to invest in your organization, you need to show that you’re professional and credible.
Squarespace is a brilliant option for charities, as you can create a professional-looking website in minutes. You can choose from over 150 professionally designed templates, many of which are specifically designed for non-profits.
One of our favorite Squarespace non-profit templates is Lusaka. It’s clean and professional. Plus, there’s plenty of room for photos.
Want something truly bespoke? A Squarespace website developer can create a custom website with your very own unique templates!
It has cool marketing tools
It’s essential to nurture your donors when you run a charity website. You want to share what you do with the money they give you, tell them about upcoming events, and encourage them to donate again.
Squarespace has lots of integrated marketing features to make communicating with donors as easy as possible.
You can use pop-ups to encourage people to sign up for your newsletter, Squarespace email campaigns to manage your email newsletters, and Membership sites to build an online community.
There’s also a donation button you can use to make it easy to raise funds online. Let’s take a look in more detail.
Using Squarespace to get donations
While Squarespace is primarily designed for eCommerce, you can use it to fundraise and get donations too. Here’s how to set Squarespace up for fundraising.
To accept donations directly through Squarespace, you need to sign up for a Business or Commerce plan. Connect your website to a PayPal or Stripe account, and add a donation block to the page of your choice.
You can then customize your donation block by adding text, donation amounts, and additional fields. For example, you might want to encourage donors to sign up for your mailing list or provide a field where they can donate in someone’s honor.
How much does Squarespace charge for donations?
It depends on the pricing tier you’re on.
Squarespace charges a 3% transaction fee on the Business plan and 0% on the Commerce plan. Also bear in mind that you need to pay PayPal and Stripe’s processing fees on top of this too.
Can you set up recurring payments on Squarespace?
Unfortunately you can only take one-off payments through Squarespace at the moment. If you want to encourage regular donations though, there are workarounds.
The best option is to embed a PayPal fundraising button, which gives the option to sign up for a monthly recurring payment.
Does Squarespace offer special charity pricing?
Squarespace doesn’t provide special charity pricing. However, you can save up to 30% by paying annually instead of monthly.
Occasionally Squarespace has discount codes on new plans – check out the coupons page to see what’s on offer.
Want to develop a Squarespace charity website that ticks all the boxes?
If you’re looking for a great charity website, you might want to consider fundraising with Squarespace. It’s easy to edit, looks clean and professional, and lets visitors donate with a click of a button!
At Studio Elias, we have years of experience designing and building stunning Squarespace websites. Our team will develop a non-profit website for your organization, fully optimized for SEO and integrated with your social media accounts. We’ll even give you a 20% discount on your first year of hosting!
Get in touch and take the first step towards a Squarespace fundraising website that your patrons and donors will love.
