Charity website copywriting – Write content for charity websites

Charity website copywriting is a challenging task. Writers have to establish an emotional connection with the audience, engaging and inspiring them with your story. They need to balance the conceptual with the practical, ensuring users can access all the information they need.

Sound easy? It isn’t – but we can help. 42group is one of the UK’s leading charity copywriting agencies, creating words and completing work for influential and successful charities across a range of sectors. We’re going to outline the basics of creating brilliant charity content for your website.

Understand your audience

It sounds obvious, but copywriters need complete clarity about who they’re writing for before they pick up a pen or put a finger on a key.

Ideally, every charity will have detailed audience information, including personas (with points of interest), content preference, tone of voice information and more.

For most charities, the focus is on donors (and driving donations), but you’ll want to ensure have audience information on donors, volunteers, beneficiaries, significant stakeholder and current and potential partners. 

Here are some ways that you can develop a clear picture of your audience:

• Create personas: Personas are a good way to capture details of your core audience. Personas are detailed profiles of your typical website visitors and include information on demographics, motivations, challenges and their relationship with your charity.
• Conduct surveys and interviews: Creating personas is often a paper-based exercise, so it’s important to speak to real people. Source direct feedback from your current supporters and beneficiaries, learning about what drives them and what they value.
• Analyse website data: Online information can provide insights into your audience. Look to use tools like Google Analytics to understand visitor behaviour  – including which pages they visit most, and where they drop off. You can also learn about the keywords you’re running for to provide some insights into Google search performance and user priorities.

Crafting a strong message

The copy on your website should articulate your charity’s mission, vision and values. Copywriters will need to create a series of core messages that resonate with your audience and drive them to take action.

How? You can do some benchmarking by reviewing the content on other successful charity websites. But don’t limit yourself. Great copy, content and creative ideas can come from anywhere. We recommend that you search out copy that you like, whether this is on a commercial site, other charity, public sector provider or product.

Before engaging a copywriter you should have a clear and simple set of statements that can help them, including:

• Mission statement: This is a concise statement that explains why your charity exists, who it serves, and how it accomplishes its goals. It’s about who you are and why you do what you do.
• Vision statement: Your vision statement should describe the future impact of your charity’s work.
• Values: The values of your charity are the core principles that guide your charity’s actions and decisions.

You may already have these statements somewhere. Before sending them to a charity copywriter, consider if they’re accurate, clear and compelling. Do they truly convey what your charity does and why? If not, take a step back and consider refreshing, reviewing or rewriting them. 

Your copywriter will use these as inspiration and information to create content – so ensuring they’re accurate will have a positive impact on the results.

Structuring your content

A well-structured website will help users get the information they need. And that’s all that matters. 

Here are some of the essential pages every charity website should have. (If you already have a website, then skip to the next section…)

• Homepage: Your charity website homepage should provide a clear overview of your organisation, including a brief introduction into who you are and why you exist, key initiatives, and calls to action (CTAs).
• About us page: This essential page provides more information on your charity’s history, mission, vision, and values.
• Programmes and services: Now we’re getting into the details. The programmes and services pages outline the specific programmes and services your charity offers
• Impact page: As a charity, it’s not about what you do, but the impact you have. Your impact page(s) should highlight the outcomes of your work. Illustrate things with data, testimonials, case studies and success stories.
• Get involved: If someone wants to help, make it as easy as possible. Provide clear instructions on how visitors can support your charity, whether that’s through donations, volunteering, partnerships or all of them!
• Blog: Whether you call it a blog, news or insights page, regularly posting content will keep your audience engaged and improve your site’s SEO. 
• Contact us: Your contact page must be easily accessible, includingmultiple ways for people to get in touch with you.

Is this an exhaustive list? No. These are the basic pages we see in almost all charity websites. As well as these consider what your audience needs. You may want to add landing pages, donation pages, more success stories or interactive elements. Busy charities may want to add a news or media section to their sites. 

Most charities won’t have the budget for a UX/UI consultant, but if you’re developing a large or complex site with multiple audiences and user touchpoints you should consider it. UX and UI experts can bring significant insights and add a large amount of value to your project, ensuring the end product works for every audience.

How to write non-profit website content

If you’re reading this, you’ll have your own views on what marks great website content but there are some fundaments. Effective charity website copy should be clear, concise, and emotionally engaging. (We’ve explored this in greater detail in our charity copywriting guide, but we’ll briefly summarise the advice here.)

Without delay, here are some tips for writing persuasive copy:

• Use a conversational tone: Charities need to make a personal connection with the reader. Where possible (and appropriate) use a conversational tone to break down barriers and establish a relationship. It’s a careful balance between being conversational and informal. The best approach is to test, assess and iterate to find a tone that works for internal stakeholders and external audiences.
• Tell stories: One of the best ways to break through and create a personal connection is to use storytelling techniques to illustrate the impact of your work. 
• Be clear, simple and specific: Nobody wants buzzwords, cliches and cut-price content. Always avoid jargon and be specific about what your charity does, why you do it and who (or what) you’re helping.
• Use strong CTAs: Don’t expect audiences to know what you want them to do. Tell them. Examples of clear CTAs include terms like “Donate Now,” “Join Us,” or “Learn More.”
• Highlight urgency and impact: Leave your readers with a sense of urgency – and inspire them to act today and not wait.  Make a personal plea and explain what their support is needed today and what impact it will have.

We’re in an attention economy and if you don’t use commercial approaches to copywriting you’ll lose your audience. You have literally seconds to capture their attention and communicate your message.

Is your current copy and content achieving this?

Optimising for SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the science and art of improving your website’s visibility on search engines. The result is (if done correctly) more organic traffic. 

This isn’t a charity SEO guide (there are loads online), but how you can work with a copywriter and content team to improve the SEO of your site during the copywriting process. 

Here are key SEO practices:

• Keyword research: If you don’t have an SEO agency, copywriting agencies (like 42group) can help you identify relevant keywords that potential supporters might use to find charities like yours. We can help you by using tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs and SEMrush.
• On-page SEO: Once we’ve got the keywords, we’ll incorporate them naturally into titles, headings, meta descriptions and body text. If you have lots of keywords it can quickly become confusing, so we recommend ensuring each page targets a primary keyword and includes related terms.
• High-quality content: Sounds obvious (because it is) but regularly publishing high-quality, relevant content that addresses the needs and interests of your audience will improve your search engine ranking. Don’t post junk content or stuff created by AI. (If you do expect a penalty.) 
• Internal linking: Always use internal links to guide website visitors to the right content on your site. Aim for 2-3 internal links per blog post (and as many as is required on other pages).

These are some of the ways a copywriter can help you improve SEO – but they can’t do it alone. You’ll need a website developer or partner that can ensure the site is optimised for all devices (mobile, desktop, tablet, etc.), is fast and responsive and accessible. These elements all have an impact on SEO performance.

Commit to continuous content improvement

You’ve engaged a copywriter and agreed on a fee. Your job is done, right? Not so fast… 

Improving your website copy is an ongoing process. You’ll need a process in place to regularly review, refine and update your content based on feedback and performance data.

Here are some of the ways we recommend 

• A/B testing: If you have the time and budget, commit to testing different versions of key pages or elements (like headlines or CTAs) to see what works best. (When we work with a client, we produce several versions of key pages so our clients can decide on a structure, style and tone of voice that works for them.)
• Analytics: Data is your friend. Use web analytics to track visitor behaviour and identify areas for improvement, including pages that are underperforming. Session capture tools can enable you to see how users are using your site – and where they’re dropping off.
• Feedback loops: Always listen to your users. Try to collect feedback from users through surveys, forms and direct interactions. The aim here is to understand their needs and preferences better and to translate these insights into better content.

Charity copywriting checklist

You’ve read a lot of words here which we hope all make sense and provide clarity and value. Let’s end with a useful charity copywriting ticklist to help you understand the steps to go through.

• Understand your audience: Develop personas, conduct surveys, and analyse website data. The better you understand your audience, the more impactful your content will be.
• Craft a strong message: Clearly articulate your mission, vision, and values. Make sure these are relevant and relatable. If not, refresh (or rewrite) them.
• Structure your content: Organise your website with key pages like Home, About Us, Programmes, Impact, Get Involved, Blog, and Contact Us. Ensure your site ahs everything a reader would need.
• Write persuasive copy: Use a conversational tone, tell stories, be clear and specific, use strong CTAs, and highlight urgency and impact. Don’t be afraid to be bold and always establish a unique tone of voice.
• Optimise for SEO: Make it as easy as possible for our audience to find you with strategic SEO. Conduct keyword research, use on-page SEO techniques, publish high-quality content, use internal linking, optimise for mobile, and improve page speed.
• Commit to continuous improvement: Regularly review and update content, use A/B testing, analyse web analytics, and collect user feedback. Never settle for average content.

Conclusion

Writing effective charity website copy requires a strategic approach that combines all the elements here to create personal connections with your audience. 

But even following this guide slavishly may not generate copy that connects with your audience. Why? Because the best copywriting doesn’t always conform to the rules. Copywriters need the freedom to be creative, learning from the best copywriters in the commercial world to break through.

At 42group, we work with each client to find a copywriting direction that works for internal stakeholders and external audiences. By working closely with our charity partners (and website designers and developers) we play a vital part in creating human connections with your audience. 

The result is copy and content that cuts through the noise to establish a personal relationship with every reader. Sound good? Then get in touch.