Creating Your Own Website? 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t

If you work for a nonprofit, you likely have a lot to do and few resources. So what you choose to focus on matters. A lot. This is something we hear often: “We need a better website, but we don’t have the resources to take care of it.” We get you. Creating your own website can stretch your limited faculties and offer snowballing challenges.

So don’t.

A website is crucial if you want to inspire donors and prospects to take action (donate, register, volunteer, etc.). But it’s not something you need to take on yourself. Creating your own website could create more problems than it solves—like these.

1. It’s distracting and it pulls focus from your day-to-day responsibilities. 

Do you love interacting with your constituents? Planning events? Creating marketing materials or fundraising strategies? If you also try to be your own web development company, you’ll resent stepping away from what you love to do. There are tools geared to helping novices create simpler websites. However, they can’t do much heavy lifting. And while they may look nice, they’re unlikely to give your constituents the best results.

2. You’ll end up with little to no tech support.

 Let’s say you use a free website builder for creating your own website. That’s great for starters—but what happens when you have a technical question? What if a link breaks and you don’t know why? Your design looks wonky on a smartphone? A virus corrupts your database? Who you gonna call? “Ghostbusters” is not an acceptable answer! Unless you think your website is haunted. What you need is a nonprofit website that is easy to manage. That has a safety net support team who can walk you through (or better yet, FIX) any glitches or issues. Ahem, like Firespring’s stellar support rockstars who care about your cause.

3. Your website’s security may be questionable. 

This is a biggie. If you store people’s personal data, cyber security must be among your top priorities. It’s a big PR mess if hackers get in and steal stuff. Do you really want that responsibility? Entrust your website to a web development company to keep optimal security measures in place. Keep your information safe and ensure uptime. Let someone else monitor security for you so you can focus on growing your organization. Beats apologizing for security breaches.

4. You may have to put up with crap you don’t like, all in the name of “free.”

Again, there are free website builders out there, but they come at a cost. You may have ads displayed on your site that distract your visitors. Or a template that looks dated after a year, but you can’t remove it. Perhaps your content management system functions poorly. Maybe it offers limited design choices that don’t suit your brand. And ugh—it’s a pain to reboot a website every year because you had to have the “free” version. The adage “you get what you pay for” has never been truer in the world of tech. A free website may be costing you loads of money. Especially if your donation process is not seamless and secure. Don’t let “free” mislead you.

5. You lose sight of what you’re passionate about. 

You got into nonprofit work for a reason, and it likely wasn’t for the thrill creating own website. We’d like to help you keep sight of your “why.” At Firespring, we always say that “our mission is to accomplish yours.” What do we mean by that? In short, we’re saying “Let us do our thing so that you can do your thing.” We live, eat, and breathe technology and marketing, we stay up on the latest trends. We’re always evolving and updating how we approach website creation. Everything we do is in the name of love. The love we have for the nonprofit world and your mission to make the world a better place.

As a certified B Corporation, our commitment to providing best-in-class nonprofit websites has freed thousands of nonprofits to keep their mission front and center and to focus on their “why” rather than their “why???” You know, like “Why does my site keep crashing? “Why can’t I change that homepage image?” “Why does my donation form keep breaking??” Those are the whys we want to take off your plate.

Here’s another important why: Why not take us for a spin? Book a free website demo with one of our nonprofit website experts! Learn how effective and affordable a Firespring website is. Free yourself in 2023 to do what you love most: grow your organization.

This spotlighted post is courtesy of Firespring.