In this article we show how you can build a campaign website for your activist movement. First, we talk about why a website is (not) useful to have. Then we review various options for building one.

When contributing to this article, please do not use technical language. We want everyone to be able to learn .

Do you need a website? #

Before you start looking how to build a website, ask yourself: what do I need a website for? You might not need a website at all, or it might just be too expensive or time intensive to build one.

Whether you need a website or not, really depends on your movement. These are some reasons why it might be useful to your organisation:

• Recruit new members: You can add a signup form to your homepage. You can also show the ways that people can contribute to your cause.

• Share events: You might not only want to depend on Facebook for sharing your events. It is also possible to add a signup form to your events, so that you can keep people updated via the contact details they provided.

• Share resources: Do you have guides for your volunteers? Your website can serve as a platform to share your resources.

Reviewing your options #

There are many ways to build a website. Some options are very simple, where others require more technical experience. The more resources (time and money) you are willing to invest, the more you will be able to customise your website. We recommend going for one of the three options below:

1. Content management systems (CMS)

2. Services for movements

3. Completely from scratch

Even if some of your members are experienced web developers, it might still not be worth it to build your own website completely from scratch.

Content management systems (CMS) #

• Wordpress: One of the easiest ways to get started is using Wordpress. It is open source, and there are many commercial services available to host a Wordpress website. You can request a free wordpress website through the Tipping Point UK Tech Hub project for grassroots activists.

Services for movements #

• Nationbuilder

• Action Network . To access partnership features for free, you can request access through the Tipping Point UK Tech Hub project

• Wings

• Run

Hosting #

Free for static websites connected to Github repositories:

• Netlify

• Github pages

• Vercel

Analytics #

• Google Analytics

• Matomo (privacy-friendly and open source alternative)

Want the most feature-rich solution? Choose Google Analytics. Care about privacy? Use Matomo.

Comments #

• Commento: Open source platform for comments. For €10 per month they will host it for you. You can also host it yourself.

Improve this page #

This page is easy to improve. There already are high quality articles on this topic available under a Creative Commons licence. We can reuse those articles and integrate their content with this guide.

Related articles #

• SEO for nonprofits

External resources #

Creative Commons:

• Creating a Website by Community Tool Box

Other:

• Landing Page FYI

• Linktree: Create one link to share all of your important links in a single list. It can serve as a makeshift website in a pinch.