Blackpool has one of the busiest third sectors in the country, because it has to. Food banks, youth clubs, addiction recovery, veterans’ groups, community sports, church halls doing five jobs at once - and almost all of it running on volunteers and thin funding. The website usually comes last: half-finished, built by whoever offered in 2019, or a Facebook group doing a job it was never meant for. That matters more than it seems, because the people you need to reach - donors, funders, volunteers, families looking for help - all check the website first. We know this sector from the inside: we built the site for The Bureau, a community volunteering charity that’s been improving lives for almost fifty years, and the brief is always the same. Look credible, make it obvious how to help, and don’t eat anyone’s evenings maintaining it.
What we build for charities and community groups
- Donations that actually work. We wire in whichever donation platform suits you - JustGiving, GoFundMe, PayPal Giving, or your own payment page - so giving is one tap on a phone, not a scavenger hunt. Gift Aid messaging included where it applies.
- Volunteer recruitment. A proper “get involved” page: what roles you need, what’s involved, and a form or contact that goes straight to the right person. If recruitment is your lifeblood, we build the site around it.
- Events and what’s-on. Coffee mornings, fixtures, fundraisers, sessions. Kept current - because a website advertising last year’s fun day quietly tells people you’ve folded.
- Funder-ready credibility. Grant applications get Googled. Trustees, aims, accounts, impact - laid out the way a funder expects to find them, with your charity or CIC number where it should be.
- The practical pages. Where you are, when you’re open, who to ring, safeguarding contacts, referral routes. For a lot of Blackpool charities the website’s most important visitor is someone who needs help right now.
Everything is built accessible and mobile-first - your audience includes people on old phones, slow connections and screen readers, and the site has to work for all of them.
A price a committee can say yes to
Nobody wants to stand up at the AGM and propose spending thousands on a website. Our package is £99 to set up, then £29.99 a month, and that covers design, hosting, your domain, email addresses, security and unlimited edits. New trustees, a fresh fundraising appeal, this month’s events - message us and it goes up, already paid for. No surprise invoices to explain to the committee, and no relying on the one volunteer who knows how the old site works.
Getting found - and being believed
People search for help and for causes the same way they search for everything else: “food bank Blackpool”, “volunteering near me”, “youth football club Cleveleys”. We structure every charity site to show up for the searches that matter to you, with the structured data Google uses to understand a local organisation. Just as important is what people find when they’ve already heard of you - a funder checking you’re real, a parent checking you’re safe, a donor checking where the money goes. The website’s job is to settle all three in thirty seconds.
Questions charities ask us
We’re run by volunteers - who keeps the website up to date?
We do. Unlimited edits are part of the monthly fee, so updates are a WhatsApp message, not a job for whoever’s least afraid of computers. When committee members change, nothing is lost - we’re still here.
Can you take donations through the site?
Yes - we integrate the donation platform you already use (JustGiving, GoFundMe, PayPal Giving and the like) so supporters give in a couple of taps. If you don’t have one yet, we’ll help you pick one with sensible fees.
We’re a small club, not a registered charity - is this still for us?
Absolutely. Sports clubs, residents’ associations, CICs, church groups - the same package works for any community organisation. If you do have a charity or CIC number, we’ll make sure it’s displayed properly.
Do we own the website?
After 12 months the website and domain belong to the organisation - not to us, and not to any individual volunteer. Before that they stay with us as part of the service, and there’s no contract, so you can cancel anytime.
Ready when you are
Send us what you do and what you need more of - donations, volunteers, members, referrals - and we’ll tell you straight what a website can do about it.