Web Hosting for Volunteer Groups

Volunteer groups are the hardest kind of organisation to build a website for, and it has nothing to do with technology. The site has to be maintained by people who are giving their time for free, whose availability changes, and who may hand the whole thing over to someone else at the next AGM. Anything clever enough to need its creator is the wrong answer.

What a volunteer group website is actually for

Most volunteer-run sites try to do too much. In practice, they serve three audiences, in this order of importance:

• People who might volunteer. They want to know what you do, what helping involves, how much time it takes, and who to contact. Vagueness here costs you volunteers.
• People who need what you provide. They want opening times, eligibility, location and a phone number, usually on a phone, usually in a hurry.
• Funders and supporters. They want evidence: what you did last year, how many people you helped, who backs you.

If your homepage answers those three groups above the fold, the site is doing its job. Everything else is optional.

Recruiting volunteers through the site

The single biggest improvement most volunteer group websites can make is being specific about what volunteering actually involves. “Volunteers welcome, get in touch” converts far worse than “We need two people on Saturday mornings, 9am to noon, no experience needed, training provided.”

A short volunteer page listing current roles, the realistic time commitment, and a simple form beats a general contact address. Keep the form short. Every extra field costs you responses, and you can ask the rest once someone has raised their hand.

Surviving committee turnover

This is where volunteer group websites usually come unstuck. The member who built the site steps down, and a year later nobody can update the homepage, renew the domain, or even work out who is paying for the hosting.

Three things prevent it:

• Register the domain to the group, not a person. Use a committee email address for renewal notices, and set auto-renew with a card that will not expire with the treasurer’s term. Our guide to domains and nameservers covers the practical side.
• Keep it simple enough to hand over. WordPress with a plain theme and a handful of plugins can be explained to a successor in an afternoon. Custom code usually cannot.
• Write down where everything lives. One page in the group’s shared files: domain registrar, hosting provider, who holds the logins, and what renews when. It takes ten minutes and prevents most of the disasters.

Showing impact without a design budget

Funders and prospective volunteers both respond to evidence, and evidence is cheap to publish. One page with a handful of numbers from the last year, a couple of photographs of the group actually working, and two or three short quotes from people you have helped will do more than a redesign. Update it annually, and date it, so visitors can see the group is active.

Photographs matter more than most groups realise, and phone photographs are fine. What is not fine is stock imagery of people who are visibly not your volunteers.

Member details and mailing lists

Most volunteer groups end up holding some personal information: contact details for volunteers, sometimes for the people they support. Keep it proportionate. Store as little as you need, keep it in one place rather than scattered across committee members’ personal inboxes, and use a proper mailing list tool rather than a long CC line. Sending group emails through a mailbox on your own domain also stops your messages landing in supporters’ spam folders, which is a surprisingly common reason volunteer newsletters go unread.

Keeping the cost sensible

A volunteer group website should cost tens of pounds a year, not hundreds. Domain plus a basic hosting plan covers it, and free WordPress themes are perfectly capable. The costs worth paying for are the ones that reduce risk: automatic backups, SSL, and hosting whose support will answer a question from a volunteer who is not technical. Our guide to low-cost web hosting in the UK explains what to look for and what to be wary of.

If your group is a registered charity, it is worth checking for sector discounts before paying standard rates. Our charity and non-profit hosting page sets out what we offer.

Frequently asked questions

Do we need a website if we have a Facebook group?

A Facebook group is good for talking to people who already know you. A website is how people who do not know you find you, and it is the only part of your presence you control. Most groups benefit from both, with the website as the permanent home.

Who should manage the site day to day?

Ideally two people, so nothing stalls when one is away, and so knowledge does not leave with a single volunteer. It does not need to be a technical role.

How often does it need updating?

Less often than people fear. What matters is that dates, contact details and current volunteer roles are accurate. A site that is correct but quiet is far better than one that is busy but out of date.

A note on hosting

Switchweb hosts a good number of UK volunteer groups and community organisations on standard plans that include UK servers, free SSL, daily backups and mailboxes on your own domain, with support you can reach without a ticket queue. If your group is setting up a site, or has inherited one nobody quite understands, get in touch and we will happily talk it through.

Explore more

Many volunteer-run groups start life as informal clubs, and our guide to web hosting for hobby clubs covers that end of the scale. If your group is a registered charity, or is working towards it, our guide to charity WordPress hosting explains the sector pricing worth asking for, and our charity and non-profit hosting plans show what is included. For the bigger picture of what a good local website does for a community, see building stronger connections locally and beyond.