Are you a charity that’s struggling to get website changes actioned by your digital provider? Stuck in a contract that isn’t working for you? Using a content management system (CMS) that’s no longer fit for purpose?

We have some suggestions.

The more conversations we have with charities and community foundations, the more we’re coming across teams who:

Can’t edit their own websites
Don’t know how to use their own content management system
Are stuck with developers who aren’t responding to emails
Have developers unwilling to make requests you want
In long-term contracts that are giving you no value
Want to move away but are worried of the knock-on effect

First of all, you’re not alone.

We’re finding lots of you feel stuck at the moment, either in contracts you aren’t sure you can leave, or you have nowhere to turn when wanting to move away, so here’s some insights to help you out:

“I can’t edit our own website, surely I should be able to?”

If you have no access to your content at all, you probably should have.

If your charity website was built on platforms such as Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace, Drupal, Craft, Weebly, Django etc. they all have admin panels and can all have users added to them, so it might be that you have just never been provided access to the admin panel by your developers.

Another reason could potentially be the designers or developers are protecting the original vision of the website they created and don’t want you to change it too much as it can affect that vision.

This is quite common and this type of ‘gatekeeping’ can come from a good place, as designers should be designing your website to meet your goals and what you requested of them, so for them to prevent dramatic changes to that objective should raise questions for them.

However, being able to edit your content inline with their design should be something you are able to do, so asking them for access and letting you know what you can change is definitely something you could ask about.

“We don’t know how to use our content management system…”

If your provider gave you access to the CMS but you don’t know how to use it, ask them for some training tips on how to edit and manage it yourself.

Ask them about ‘onboarding’ you and your team on the website.

A simple screen share, 20 minute Zoom call, Loom recording or Google doc could easily cover all of the core features on how to use the CMS and if the team always build on a certain platform they may even have a reusable guide they could quickly send to you.

This may be something they want to charge you for; look into if this should have been included as part of the project initially and if it was ask them to do it for free, if it wasn't and it comes in the form of paid training, consider how helpful to you and the team the session will be in moving forward.

Alternatively, content management systems often have their own guidance online already provided. They can often feel complicated and can often be aimed at developers, but if you have the time and want to find out if your CMS has a certain feature or how to do something they can be worth a look. The Wordpress Learn section is a good example of this for Wordpress systems, or Drupal's User Guide for those of us on Drupal.

“Our Developers won’t respond to us, how do I get them to notice us?”

If the team who built your website doesn’t respond to any of your emails, that’s obviously not good enough, but it could be down to a few obvious reasons, such as your emails have gone into spam, your previous contact has left and email redirects weren’t setup or they’re just out of the office right now…

If your charity website was originally built pro-bono or by someone associated with your charity, their circumstances may now have changed too.

But, if you think there is something more to it, then it could be:

They’re really busy on other projects.
They did your website years ago and may find it difficult to maintain and update (a ‘legacy website’)
It was built by someone on older code who no longer works there.
They may want to move you on as a client.

So if you feel like you’re being ignored, try emailing from a different account, or contacting their sales number or email for a chat because you need to know what’s going on.

You can look through old emails for anyone who has actively responded to you in the past and ask them to provide you with the details of the project manager or account handler at their end that deals with you as their client.

If you know yourselves the website is really old, and you feel like they are slow to come back to you or don’t seem keen on working on the project, raise it and have a discussion with them about how to make the process easier for all of you.

“They won’t make the changes we requested. What do we do?”

If you’re getting pushback on what someone is willing to do for you on the website, then have a look at what was in any initial agreement or contract.

Check for any information on ‘maintenance’, ‘dedicated time’, ‘studio time’, ‘our commitment’ or anything of that nature which might help clarify what it is you can expect from them.

If you pay someone monthly for ‘support’ and they are seemingly doing nothing, send them an email asking for a breakdown of what is included in this support agreement and you can be the judge of the value you’ve had from it.

The outside impression that they aren’t doing anything isn’t always correct and it depends on what type of support an agency has agreed to provide a client with.

For example, they may not actively make changes to your website, but they might be keeping track of the uptime of your website and ensuring that it doesn’t go offline.

“We’re wanting to take our website elsewhere, but don't know how.”

If you’re at a point where it’s clear on both sides where you stand in the partnership and there are no misunderstandings, you may still feel it’s time to move away from your current host or agency partner.

One of the most important things you’ll need to make sure of when moving your existing website as-is to a new web host is to find out who owns the copyright to the website's design.

Is it you? Do the designers retain control? Was an off-the-shelf theme or design used? (which would mean neither of you actually own the original design).

The other most important part is understanding who registered your domain names (.com, .co.uk etc) and understanding that initially, when your web designers created your website, they attached this domain name to a set of files that they created.

When visitors enter this domain name, they will see this set of documents. So did you register the domain initially or did your provider?

This is key, as everything depends on knowing if you’re able to point your domain name to wherever you would like as you will need the login name and password for your domain registrar to be able to do so.

These factors can really help you to understand how complicated it could be to move away from your current partners, if it’s possible and who has the ability to make those changes.

“What are the long-term effects of moving our website elsewhere?”

None.

If you’re worried about moving your website to your own hosting provider and/or to a different developer entirely you’ve nothing to worry about.

If you purchased your own hosting and own your own domain names (.com, .co.uk etc), then putting the website on a new server is a straightforward process and doesn’t affect anything related to the performance of your website, your SEO or anything else.

You can pay someone to set up your current website on a new server for very little cost too and then have the power to know your website is now truly your own.

In Summary

You should never feel that you’re stuck with a digital provider and should feel empowered to manage and edit your own website as you learn and grow as a charity - this is what we believe in, and is how we build all of our projects.

If you need some advice on how to move your website to someone else or If you’d like to know more about how we could work together, get in touch.

Frequently Asked Questions for charities with digital challenges