What is "What should be on a nonprofit homepage?" about?
Lead with dates, access, and how to help. Mission language can follow once the operational answers are obvious.
Who wrote this article?
Dan Heselton, web designer and front-end developer. More at https://danheselton.com/about.
What should be on a nonprofit homepage?
What is happening soon (dates, location, access), how to participate or donate, and who the organization serves—before long mission statements.
Where should the mission statement go?
After operational answers, or in a short line that does not bury hours and giving paths. Mission matters; hiding the Saturday market does not.
How do events belong on the homepage?
Surface the next event clearly and link to a stable URL with human-readable details. Seasonal programs should not live only in a PDF or social post.
The short version: Lead with dates, access, and how to help. Mission language can follow once the operational answers are obvious.
Nonprofit homepages often try to speak to everyone: the neighbor, the vendor, the donor, the tourist. The risk is a polite wall of mission language that hides what happens this week.
Lead with usefulness. Dates, location, accessibility, and how to help. Then story. Public programs happen in real weather on real streets—operational detail beats inspirational fog.
Donations and volunteer paths should feel like one site, not a handoff to another brand. If SNAP matching, youth programs, or vendor applications matter, say so in plain language where people look first.
That is the pattern behind stronger nonprofit sites I build: structure first, maintainable CMS, and answers that hold up when someone is standing in line deciding whether to come back next Saturday.
