Guest Post by Ira Horowitz, Co-Founder at Cornershop Creative
“If your website’s ‘Latest News’ section features a gala from 2022, you aren’t just sharing old info—you’re telling donors you’ve stopped moving. A strong, updated nonprofit website builds trust with your community, connects you with beneficiaries, and helps supporters take meaningful actions to support your mission.”
But even the best-designed site can quickly lose its effectiveness without regular upkeep. Broken donation forms, outdated event details, or missing information frustrate users and quietly erode credibility. Over time, those small issues can directly impact your ability to fund your mission.
Maintaining a nonprofit website does not have to feel overwhelming. With a clear plan and a few recurring check-ins, you can keep your site functional, secure, and aligned with your goals—while delivering a better experience for donors, volunteers, and corporate partners.
Check that all elements work.
If you consider the best nonprofit websites, they’re all functional as a baseline. This isn’t because of some top-website magic; it’s due to ongoing maintenance done by the teams behind the scenes.
To ensure that your users are equipped to meaningfully engage with your website, start by testing the elements that directly support your nonprofit’s fundraising and engagement.
1. Test All Forms
Forms are among the most important and most fragile parts of a nonprofit website. The best way to test a form is to use it yourself. Submit a test donation (you can refund it later), register for an event, or sign up for your own newsletter.
As you test each form, confirm that all fields display correctly, submissions go through without error, automated emails are properly sent, and data flows correctly into your CRM.
You’ll also want to check that any external tools are working. For example, if your donation form features matching gifts, take the time to confirm the integration is still live. Tools like Double the Donation’s overview of matching gift software vendors can help you understand what a healthy setup should include.
2. Check Links Sitewide
Broken links create frustration and quietly erode trust. Be sure to manually click through main navigation items, footer links, and high-traffic pages like your homepage or Ways to Give page.
For deeper audits, use automated tools or plugins to identify broken links across your site. You can also use Yoast SEO Premium to prevent broken links before they occur, as this plugin will automatically create redirects when you change a page URL. Fixing or redirecting links helps maintain a smooth experience and protect your credibility.
3. Review Multimedia Elements
Images, videos, and interactive elements are often the first things to break, and the last things teams notice. Do a visual review of your core pages and look for:
- Missing images
- Broken video embeds
- Outdated PDFs
- Interactive elements that no longer load
Fixing these issues ensures your site looks intentional and trustworthy, while also providing an opportunity for your users to engage meaningfully.
Double-check that all information is up-to-date and accurate.
A functional website is essential. An accurate website is just as important.
Over time, organizations change. Leadership evolves. Programs expand. Fundraising priorities shift. Your website should reflect your nonprofit as it exists today, not as it did several years ago.
1. Project and Program Information
Your website should provide regular updates about various in-progress projects, including how much has been accomplished and what help is still needed to reach your organization’s goals. That way, supporters can see projects through to completion and understand the impact of their help!
Review program and project pages to ensure they include:
- Current objectives related to new initiatives or fundraising goals
- Recent milestones, such as campaign successes or news mentions
- Clear descriptions of ongoing needs, such as through donation impact statements like $20 feeds 4 kittens
Effective fundraising appeals reinforce how clarity and relevance drive donor response. When donors understand what you are working toward, they are more likely to give.
2. Engagement Opportunities
A supporter should be able to find several ways to get involved. Review the following pages to ensure accuracy and timeliness:
- Events calendars
- Volunteer opportunities
- Advocacy actions
- Ways to Give
Remove outdated opportunities and highlight current ones. A supporter should never wonder whether an opportunity is still available.
3. Contact Information
Clear contact information builds trust and removes friction. In addition to a general contact form, always make sure your website lists a mailing address, phone number, and at least one email address.
Where possible, include different points of contact for different needs. For example, list a volunteer coordinator for volunteer inquiries or a development contact for planned giving questions. This approach supports stronger relationships and aligns well with best practices around donor engagement and stewardship.
4. Tax Status and Form 990
Transparency matters to donors and funders.
Ensure your nonprofit’s EIN is easy to find, often in the site footer for visibility across all pages. Upload your most recent Form 990 and label it clearly, such as “Form 990 for FY 2025,” so supporters know it is current. After all, clear and accessible nonprofit financial statements build trust and incentivize donors.
5. Homepage Information
Your homepage sets expectations for your entire site. Some elements, like your mission statement, may stay consistent. Others should be updated regularly, including:
- Featured programs or campaigns
- Impact highlights
- Upcoming events
Keeping homepage content fresh signals that your nonprofit is active and continuing to make an impact.
6. Annual Report or Impact Reports
Your website is one of the most important places to show supporters how their contributions make a difference. That is why annual reports and impact reports should be easy to find and kept up to date.
Uploading these reports to your website demonstrates transparency, accountability, and progress. It also gives donors, funders, and partners a clear picture of how resources are used and what outcomes your organization is achieving.
UpMetric’s impact measurement guide highlights that impact reporting shows donors and investors that their support matters. It demonstrates that resources are used effectively, helping your nonprofit stay accountable and transparent about its operations.
Best practices for featuring reports on your website include:
- Publishing your most recent annual or impact report prominently
- Clearly labeling reports by year (for example, “2025 Impact Report”)
- Archiving older reports so supporters can see progress over time
- Linking to reports on relevant pages, such as your About page or Ways to Give page
Keeping these materials current reinforces trust and strengthens long-term supporter relationships.
Prioritize website security and backups.
Nonprofit website maintenance involves maintaining site security to safeguard donor data and preserve trust. A secure website ensures supporters feel confident submitting donations, registering for events, or sharing personal information.
Ignoring security updates can lead to serious consequences, including:
- Website downtime
- Lost or interrupted donations
- Data breaches
- Damage to your nonprofit’s reputation
To prioritize security, regularly update:
- Your core CMS platform
- Plugins and extensions
- Themes and templates
- User permissions and access levels
Automated backups are equally important. If your site is hacked or an update breaks functionality, a recent backup allows you to restore everything quickly and minimize disruption. Backups are your safety net—and they are far easier to set up in advance than to wish for after something goes wrong.
Create a calendar to keep nonprofit website maintenance on track.
Just as with any other major activity that your nonprofit completes, it’s best to have a plan in place to make sure nothing falls through the cracks! Nonprofit website maintenance is an ongoing process that involves regular review of both front-end and back-end elements of your site.
Create a checklist of all the elements that require ongoing maintenance. If your team is conducting maintenance without the help of an outside consulting partner, you’ll likely want to break down the process by scheduling benchmarks for when you’ll evaluate various portions.
For example, you might break your maintenance efforts into the following categories:
- Basic front-end functionality (forms, links, etc.)
- More technical back-end functionality and usability
- Search engine optimization
- Branding, messaging, and imagery
- Campaign updates
- Yearly reports and disclosures
Certain categories may require more frequent review than others. For example, you’ll likely want to update your campaign and project pages regularly to reflect the latest actions taken. However, your yearly reports and disclosures will only need to be updated once per year.
Partner with a professional to maintain your nonprofit’s website.
According to Cornershop Creative’s guide to nonprofit website builders, there are a number of platforms that can empower your team to conduct some of these maintenance efforts independently. WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix are known for being intuitive, in particular.
However, even with an intuitive builder, the process can quickly grow unwieldy for nonprofits to tackle on their own. It’s worthwhile to consider bringing in a nonprofit web design consultant to ensure your site is functional and well-maintained at all times. A nonprofit web agency may offer services such as:
- Regular updates to all plugins used on your site
- Daily content backups, just in case something goes awry
- Uptime and security monitoring to ensure your site is live and safe for supporters to use
- Regular monitoring of all visual elements
And perhaps best of all, you’ll have a team to contact in the event that something does go wrong with your website. Whether there’s a security issue, broken links, or something else, you’ll have a partner to call who can help you resolve the issue quickly and painlessly. This can be especially valuable for nonprofits that already have limited capacity to tackle these sorts of issues.
Wrapping up: It’s time to update your website.
Maintaining a nonprofit website is not about perfection. It is about consistency.
Small, regular updates protect your credibility, support fundraising, and create a better experience for supporters who want to help your mission succeed.
Start with one step this week. Test a donation form. Check the links on your homepage. Review your events calendar.
Those small actions add up—and they keep your website working as hard as you do.
About the Author
With 15 years’ experience, Ira is an expert in nonprofit online communications and online fundraising. His work has resulted in increased funds and resounding supporter engagement for hundreds of organizations.
Ira oversees Cornershop Collective’s project management team and works with clients to provide their clients with the best possible final product. He also manages all of their strategic engagements and helps guide nonprofits to determine their long-term strategy goals for online communications.