Websites for the Greater Good: Non-Profits on WordPress.com
All kinds of organizations make their home on WordPress.com: small businesses, municipalities, religious organizations, schools, community groups. We also provide an online HQ for quite a few non-profits, from the global to the hyperlocal. They turn to WordPress.com for an easy-to-use, low cost solution that gets them an effective web presence without diverting thousands of dollars from their missions: helping others.
Here are just a few of the organizations that call WordPress.com home, and some of the ways they’ve used WordPress.com to create compelling sites that tell their stories and engage their supporters — nearly all for little or no cost:
Girls’ Globe
Girls’ Globe is a Sweden-based non-profit that connects individuals and organizations dedicated to the rights, health, and empowerment of women and girls.
The site creates a space for bloggers and non-profits to share stories of their challenges and successes. Each of those stories becomes a learning experience for women’s rights advocates, giving them a new tool, suggesting an effective strategy for advancing girls’ rights, and providing international exposure.
Girls’ Globe uses the Oxygen theme, taking advantage of its post slider to create a colorful, graphic homepage that showcases the site’s most powerful stories. A custom menu guides visitors both to topical content and to pages critical for any non-profit: About, Partners, and Donate, where embedded PayPal buttons let visitors easily support the organization using either US dollars or Swedish krona.
(Oxygen is a versatile theme that’s quite popular with non-profits — check out how the Little Hippies Foundation and SimpleNeeds Georgia have made it their own.)
Turning Pages
We found many literacy organizations on WordPress.com — fitting, for a platform that’s about writing and reading great content. Among them is Turning Pages, a South Carolina non-profit offering adult literacy and math classes and tutoring:
Turning Pages relies on the Confit theme, originally designed for restaurants but perfect for creating websites with focused, easily navigable home pages. Their mission is front and center, and the home page also makes important information like address and office hours, a contact form, and a donate button accessible with no further clicking. In the sidebar, a custom menu lets potential volunteers and adults seeking assistance find relevant information easily. (If you’re interested in building a website with a home page rather than a blog, as Turning Pages has, check out our home page tutorial.)
Confit is designed for a large custom background image, and Turning Pages has chosen a panoramic shot of the Congaree River bridge, a Columbia landmark. It adds visual interest and emphasizes that this is a community-focused organization while not distracting from the important content on the page — a perfect double-duty background.
Tuning Pages isn’t the only organization that saw the potential in the Confit theme — the Vida Vegan Conference is also using it to share information about its upcoming gala, benefitting a chimpanzee sanctuary.
Invisible Children
When the world first became aware of the atrocities committed in Uganda by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, sending footage of Kony viral, Invisible Children was one of the main drivers behind the campaign. A California-based non-profit, Invisible Children is dedicated to ending the use and abuse of child soldiers in Africa, and their online component is powered by WordPress.com VIP:
Invisible Children is packed with information, from an interactive crisis tracker that lets visitors zoom in to learn more about specific incidents across Africa to a lobbying sign-up form and Congressional calendar for would-be activists. Compelling video and data help them make the case for their work, and the site provides ample opportunity for interested visitors to get involved, from simply making a donation to attending an event to applying for a job.
The breadth of organizations using WordPress.com VIP is truly remarkable — from Invisible Children to the Partnership for a Drug Free America to the charity: water blog.
Metro Council for Teen Potential
You might not think that a theme called Fruit Shake featuring bananas in its header would be a good foundation for a non-profit website — but then, you haven’t seen the Metro Council for Teen Potential:
Based in Rochester, New York, The Metro Council is a community youth support organization offering health and skills education, mentoring, and leadership training to young people in the greater Rochester area. Using Fruit Shake, they’ve created a simple, clean site. A front-and-center mission statement and bold photos of the teens it works with give visitors an immediate sense of what the organization does, and the navigation options in the sidebar make it easy to sift through the site’s options.
From animal welfare organizations to museums and municipal organizations to scholarship funds to community groups distributing food and clothing to the homeless and beyond, non-profits use WordPress.com to get their word out about their missions, attract volunteers, fundraise, and organize events, all in the name of the greater good. We’re proud to give them a platform that helps them create change.
- May 14, 2013
- Community
This is a fantastic post. Thank you. I’m. Saving this to my favorites.
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It’s incredibly inspiring to see all of the good that WordPress is helping to facilitate in the world. Thank you ALL for your incredible, amazing, beautiful efforts to make a positive impact in the lives of other beings. *So* wonderful.
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The Metastatic Breast Cancer Network (MBCN) recently launched its WordPress blog: http://mbcnbuzz.wordpress.com/ . It provides an excellent platform to reach people dealing with metastatic breast cancer–we are showing them they are not alone and keeping them informed of the latest treatment developments.
We are an all volunteer group. On our own, it would be difficult to get MBCN’s voice heard in an Op-Ed. But our blog lets us comment on timely issues that our important to our members. Here’s our take on a recent NYT Magazine cover story: http://mbcnbuzz.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/our-feel-good-war-on-breast-cancer-mbcn-responds/
We’ve also used our blog to share information about our annual conference (this years is Sept 21-22, 2013 at MD Anderson in Houston) as well as Oct. 13 National Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day.
We’ve featured guest blogs from SHARE and other WordPress bloggers have made effective use of the reblog feature.
This is a great communication tool for our non-profit!
Katherine O’Brien
Secretary
Metastatic Breast Cancer Network (www.mbcn.org)
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Congrats, and welcome to WordPress.com! It’s great to hear that your blog is moving your efforts forward — I’ll be adding you to my Reader 🙂
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Awesome! Our non-profit uses WordPress too — http://www.actsofsimplekindness.org – Acts of Simple Kindness for Kids of Widows and Widowers… We provide financial assistance to children, through age 18, to continue or pursue programs and extracurricular activities in the areas of education, sports, music and the arts following the death of a parent.
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Amazing post! I’m starting a non profit and I am using wordpress.com 🙂
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Congrats, and welcome!
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I wish there were more organizations listed, but it was a really cool post!
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If you have a favorite cause on WordPress.com, feel free to share it here!
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Excellent post. For articles on issues of interest to the peace and justice community, and for an annotated directory of helpful resources for activists, see http://www.PeaceAndJusticeOnline.org
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I did not setup any NGO and believes Information makes a difference in people lives. So, I set up my blog “Your Well Wisher Program” with an objective “Attempt to solve commonly known problems….” and strategy is to “Bring clarity to the well educated people”.
I am happy in choosing WordPress that makes it easy for me one man to establish a site and update it as and when required. The responses are coming in great color to my work and makes my vision a success. thank you wordpress and the people behind it.
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Wonderful platform for all non-profits to create visibility at no cost, but getting the word out there. Thank you for that post.
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I recommend http://mangarbani.wordpress.com/ . This blog is created by 5 journalism students who aspire to save mangar bani forest grove in India from destruction.
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fantastic post
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please welcome arrowmontblog.com. 2 days old. 101 years of arts and crafts education in the heart of appalachia.
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I support “Room to Read” The organization seeks to intervene early in the lives of children in the belief that education empowers people to improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries and future generations. A percentage of the profits fro, the sale of my book goes to them but you can also just donate.
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I would also add a very amazing one at http://DwellWithDignity.org/ (their BLOG IS HERE, on WordPress!!!) they’re an interior designer volunteer organization whom gift a better home decor for families in need ..by devoting their team time and efforts to decorate a person/families living environment to assist them in thriving and encouragement in their own homes…please EVERYONE check them out!!! Their hopes for future are going global and they’ve already worked with numerous firms, furniture companies, donators, etc through USA.
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Great Post Enjoyed Reading It…
Thanks for letting us share our Causes Here. Testimony & Prayer is Takin’ the Gospel to the Streets! You can check out our message at: http://testimonyandprayer.wordpress.com/
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Do you provide a discount to non-profits using the wordpress.com hosted sites?
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We don’t — luckily, WordPress.com is free, and upgrades are low-cost. For the sites profiled here, the only costs wer buying their own domain name, which is $18/year, and an upgrade to more fully customize colors and fonts, which is $30. (The exception is the VIP site.)
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Reblogged this on Mia Joia's Blog and fun stuff and commented:
Girl Power… What can I say? I believe is a MUST for every single girl in the planet to have the choice, the education, the opportunities, the economic support, AND the confidence to make their dreams happen.
So many non-profits we can choose from to join, support, donate, volunteer… we have to start making a difference today. 🙂
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Reblogged this on littlebirdloves and commented:
A Shout out to our fellow Word press blogger –sharing our passion for giving back and covering non profit Invisible Children dear to our heart!
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For me, we need NGOs; they propel the development and social justice of the world. And they also need great websites for us to know about them. Let’s support NGO’s!
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Is there any Non Profit Veteran sites on WordPress?
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I’m sure there are (and we’d love for you to start one)! Perhaps another reader can recommend a link.
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Our nonprofit also uses WordPress: http://www.brightsideanimals.org.
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This is great, and really helpful for nonprofits trying to get exposure. Very nice.
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Reblogged this on Virtually4u and commented:
Web presence without losing an arm or leg and you’re still looking good.
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Love this post! I also saved it to my favorites. Thanks, for sharing.
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