Practical ways to raise more, save time, and build something that lasts.
I founded Watermelon Web Works to serve nonprofits. We work with both nonprofits and businesses now, but that original purpose remains close to my heart.
I love seeing organizations that do genuinely useful work survive and thrive for decades. That takes more than a good mission. It takes dependable funding, people who keep showing up, and systems that do not exhaust the people running them.
A website cannot accomplish all of that. But it can make a meaningful contribution.
When I recommend WordPress for nonprofits, I am thinking about those outcomes—not how many features we can install. That is the starting point for our WordPress development work. Here are some of the most useful ways to put it to work, with steps you can take back to your team.
1. Build a monthly giving program, not just a donation button
A donation button lets someone give. A monthly giving program gives them a reason to stay.
Consider a modest goal: 50 supporters contributing $20 a month. If all 50 give for a full year, that is $12,000 before fees. It will not fund every program, but it is a meaningful base of support you can plan around.
I would start with a dedicated monthly giving page built around five questions:
- What will I help sustain? Name the work, not just the organization.
- Why does monthly support matter? Explain what reliable funding lets you plan or keep available.
- How much can I give? Offer a few clear amounts and a custom option.
- What happens after I join? Describe the updates supporters will receive.
- Can I change or cancel my gift? Make the process easy to find.
Tie giving amounts to specific outcomes only when your numbers support the claim. You do not need to invent a precise “$20 buys this” equation to explain why consistent support matters.
WordPress donation tools such as GiveWP support campaign pages and donation forms, with recurring giving available through paid functionality. If your current fundraising platform already does this well, I would look at connecting donations and payments to your WordPress website before replacing it.
Then plan the welcome. Here is a simple starting sequence:
| When | What to communicate |
|---|---|
| Immediately | Thank the donor, confirm the recurring gift, and explain how to manage it. |
| One week later | Introduce one program or share a consented story showing why the work matters. |
| One month later | Share a concrete update, thank them again, and invite a reply. |
Use your email platform to automate the appropriate messages, respecting communication preferences. Keep sending useful updates afterward. The relationship matters more than the checkbox on the donation form.
Start here: Choose one ongoing need that monthly support could help sustain, and write a paragraph explaining it.
2. Use Google Ad Grants to help the right people find you
Eligible nonprofits can receive up to $10,000 per month in Google Search advertising through Google Ad Grants.
That is advertising credit, not cash, and it does not guarantee donations or traffic. Eligibility and ongoing program requirements apply. Someone also needs to manage the campaigns and measure results.
The opportunity is still substantial. I would begin with what people are looking for and the page that would actually help them.
For example:
| Someone searches for… | Send them to… | Make the next step… |
|---|---|---|
| Food pantry volunteer opportunities in Portland | A page describing available roles, schedules, and requirements | Submit a volunteer inquiry |
| Free adult literacy classes near me | A page explaining location, eligibility, and enrollment | Request enrollment information |
| Donate school supplies locally | A page listing needed supplies and drop-off details | Arrange a donation |
These are illustrative examples, not tested keyword recommendations.
The point is to match the page to the need. Your homepage should not have to do every job.
Ad Grants is not a WordPress-exclusive benefit. WordPress gives you a flexible way to create and improve the pages behind those campaigns.
Start here: Write down three things people might search for before finding your organization. Identify the best page for each—and whether that page makes the next step obvious.
3. Recover staff time by answering the questions that keep coming back
Before adding another website feature, I would ask your team one question:
“What do you find yourself explaining over and over?”
For one week, record the repeated inquiries and roughly how long each takes to answer. Look for questions about eligibility, hours, required documents, appointments, donations, and program availability.
Then address the five most common questions where people need the answers. Eligibility belongs on the program page, not buried in a general FAQ. Parking instructions belong with the event details.
The potential adds up. Avoiding 20 five-minute exchanges each week would recover roughly 87 staff hours over a year. That is an illustration, not a forecast—but it is a useful way to evaluate the effort.
Keep a human contact option. The goal is to make getting help easier, not to make your organization harder to reach.
With WordPress, your team can maintain these answers using its built-in editor, provided the site is configured sensibly and people have the right training.
Start here: Use three spreadsheet columns: question, times asked, minutes per answer. At the end of the week, fix the largest recurring source of confusion.
4. Help interested volunteers become active volunteers
A volunteer inquiry is the beginning of a relationship, not the finish line.
I would give prospective volunteers the information they need before asking them to fill out a form: what the role involves, where it happens, the time commitment, and any screening or training requirements.
Then build a simple follow-through process:
- Collect only the information needed for the initial inquiry.
- Send an immediate acknowledgment explaining what happens next.
- Route the inquiry to a named coordinator.
- Set a response target your team can meet.
- Flag inquiries that have not received a response.
Thoughtfully configured WordPress intake forms can send acknowledgments and route notifications to the right people. Connections to email and task-management tools can support the rest of this process. An automatic acknowledgment should never imply someone has been approved for a role that requires screening.
Measure the full journey. How many inquiries receive a response? How many people complete orientation? How many reach their first shift?
Those numbers tell you more than the number of forms submitted.
Start here: Submit your own volunteer form using a test inquiry. Follow it all the way through. Is there a clear next step, and does someone own it?
5. Give donors and funders a clear picture of your impact
I would like a potential supporter to understand your work without assembling the story from six PDFs and an outdated news page.
An “Our Impact” page can give staff, board members, and supporters one useful link to share. Here is an outline you can borrow:
- The need: What problem are you addressing, and where?
- Your response: What do your programs actually do?
- Your results: What happened during a clearly identified reporting period?
- The human meaning: One story or example, shared with appropriate consent.
- Accountability: Leadership, relevant financial reports, and contact information.
- The next step: A specific way to give, volunteer, partner, or learn more.
Distinguish activity from outcomes. “We held 40 workshops” describes work delivered. Evidence of what participants gained tells a different part of the story. Both can be useful; neither needs embellishment.
This page will not replace a grant application. It can make your organization easier to understand, evaluate, and recommend. For a broader checklist, see our guide to what a nonprofit website should include.
Start here: Gather three verified results from your latest reporting period and explain, in plain language, why each matters.
Build a website that can outlast any one person
If I want an organization to thrive for decades, I also have to think about what happens when the executive director, board chair, or helpful volunteer moves on.
This is one reason I value WordPress’s open-source foundation. With self-hosted WordPress, you can change hosting or support providers without necessarily replacing the website. Specialized plugins and integrations can complicate a move, but you have options.
I would make sure your organization has:
- Organizational control of its domain, hosting, and essential accounts.
- Individual logins with appropriate permissions, rather than one shared password.
- Documented costs, renewal dates, and responsibility for maintenance.
- Current backups and a tested recovery process.
- Simple instructions for everyday updates.
WordPress is not cost-free or maintenance-free. Hosting, software licenses, updates, security, accessibility, and testing need attention. A clear WordPress maintenance plan helps keep the technical work from becoming another responsibility your team has to improvise. Those responsibilities should be explicit, not quietly inherited by whoever last touched the website.
Choose one improvement and make it work
You do not need to launch five projects at once.
If funding is unpredictable, start with monthly giving. If the team is overwhelmed by repeated questions, fix the information people cannot find. If volunteer interest is going nowhere, repair the follow-up process.
These are some of the practical things that help a useful nonprofit keep doing its work: reliable support, less avoidable effort, stronger relationships, and continuity when people change.
That is what I want a website to contribute.
At Watermelon Web Works, we still care deeply about the purpose that got us started. If your website is making important work harder, tell us where. We can help you identify the most useful next step—and preserve what already works.
