Nonprofits get pitched by web agencies constantly, usually by people who are genuinely enthusiastic and occasionally by people who have never shipped a donation flow. The difference is hard to see in a deck and easy to see in the answers to a dozen specific questions. Here is the list we would want a board to ask us.
What are the most important questions to ask a nonprofit web agency?
Ask about donation conversion, accessibility conformance, who does the work, what happens after launch, and what they will refuse to build. Those five surface almost everything that matters. Design taste, which is what most selection processes actually measure, is the easiest part to assess and the least predictive of the result.
How do you approach the donation flow?
The right answer is specific: fewer required fields, recurring giving defaulted on, Apple Pay and Google Pay enabled, no redirect to an unbranded third-party page, and event tracking from first view to confirmed gift. If the answer is about the design of the donate button, keep looking. Our sequence is written out in how to improve nonprofit online donations.
Who will actually do the work?
Ask for names and roles of the people who will write code and content, not the account team. Ask whether any of it is subcontracted and where. This is not a purity test. It is a continuity question: when something breaks in month nine, you need to reach someone who remembers the build.
What accessibility standard do you commit to?
The credible answer names WCAG 2.2 AA, describes both automated and manual testing, explains how editors are stopped from publishing inaccessible content after launch, and states a remediation timeline. Agencies that recommend an accessibility overlay widget should be removed from the shortlist. Overlays do not achieve conformance and frequently make screen reader experiences worse. Our accessibility services page is what a real answer looks like in writing.
What happens after launch?
Ask what is included in the first 90 days, what a support retainer covers, what the response time is for an outage, and how content changes are handled. Also ask what training your staff receives and whether documentation is delivered. A nonprofit with a two-person communications team cannot afford a site only the agency can edit.
Who owns the code, content, and accounts?
You should. Get it in writing: repository ownership, full CMS admin, domain and DNS in your registrar account, analytics under your organisation, and hosting in an account you control. Agencies that hold the keys are not always acting in bad faith, but the outcome is the same when the relationship ends.
What will you tell us not to do?
The most useful answer in the whole process. An agency that has done this work will push back on something: the custom donation form, the video background, the eleven-item main navigation, the CRM integration that does not have a budget for maintenance. An agency that agrees with everything is planning to bill for everything.
How do you measure success?
Baseline first, then targets tied to gifts and volunteer sign-ups rather than sessions. Ask for the specific dashboard you will get, who reviews it, and how often. Traffic is not the goal. Funded programs are.
What should this cost?
For context, a repair sprint on an existing nonprofit site typically runs $9,000 to $28,000, and a rebuild for a small to mid-sized organisation runs $25,000 to $80,000. Our bands are published on the pricing page. Any proposal far outside those bands should come with an explanation you find convincing.
Where to go next
Read the complete guide to nonprofit website fixes, nine reasons nonprofits struggle with online donations, and eight things nonprofits need from website development. Or book a working session and bring the shortlist.
Seattle, WA
A full-service digital agency working in WordPress, Drupal, Shopify, Webflow, React, and React Native. We partner with universities, governments, and growing brands to ship sites and products that hold up after launch.
