Most charity leaders wouldn’t dream of signing off on a major contract without reading it, or approving a budget without checking the numbers, or hiring someone without interviewing them. But when it comes to digital, we make high-stakes decisions by omission every single day.

We decide not to check our accessibility. Not to audit our donation journey. Not to look properly at what’s happening on mobile. Not to question whether our forms are actually working for everyone who tries to use them.

These non-decisions are still choices. They’re just choices where you don’t get to see what you’re choosing between.

The information asymmetry problem

Here’s what makes digital different from most other areas of charity management: the gap between what you think is happening and what’s actually happening can be enormous, and you’d never know unless you specifically went looking.

Your finance director can’t accidentally miss half your expenditure. Your HR manager can’t unknowingly exclude half your job applicants. But your website can be failing for 30% of your visitors, and unless someone tells you, you’ll carry on thinking everything’s fine.

This isn’t theoretical. Accessibility barriers are widespread across the web, including on sites built by organisations that genuinely care about inclusion. The issue isn’t intent - it’s awareness.

The vast majority of these organisations don’t know. They’re not ignoring the problem. They’re not aware there is one.

That’s the decision you make when you choose not to assess: you’re choosing to stay uninformed. And staying uninformed when information is available isn’t the same as the information not existing. It’s a choice to operate without it.

What you don’t know is costing you

Let’s talk about what this looks like in practice.

Your donation form loads. People click through to it. Some of them complete it. Many don’t. You might check the completion rate occasionally - if it’s above 50%, that feels reasonable. If it’s closer to 30%, you might make a mental note to look at it sometime.

But here’s what you probably don’t know: why people are abandoning. Is it because the form asks for too much information? Because it doesn’t work properly on mobile? Because the error messages are confusing? Because it requires a password for some reason? Because it times out? Because it’s not accessible to screen reader users?

Each of those problems has a different solution. Some are quick fixes. Some need proper attention. But all of them are solvable - if you know they exist.

When you don’t check, you don’t just miss the opportunity to fix these things. You miss the compounding benefit of all the donations you would have received if they’d been fixed. Month after month. Year after year.

That’s not just lost money. That’s lost impact. People who wanted to support you, tried to support you, and couldn't because something didn’t work.

The accessibility gap you didn’t know was there

Accessibility barriers are far more common than most organisations realise. Research consistently shows that the majority of websites have issues that would prevent some users from accessing content or completing actions.

These aren’t minor inconveniences - actual barriers. Things that stop people from being able to read your content, fill in your forms, or donate to your cause.

These aren’t edge cases. We’re talking about people with screen readers who can’t navigate your site because heading structure is wrong. People with motor impairments who can’t use your forms because they’re not keyboard accessible. People with colour blindness who can’t read your call-to-action buttons because the contrast is too low.

For most charities, this isn’t a deliberate choice. It’s an unknown. The site was built a few years ago, no one specifically checked for accessibility, and it seemed fine when the team tested it (because the team doesn’t use assistive technology).

But here’s where the decision comes in: once you know that accessibility barriers are widespread, choosing not to check whether your site has them is a strategic choice. You’re deciding that not knowing is preferable to knowing and potentially having to act.

That might be the right choice for your organisation right now. Budgets are tight. Priorities are endless. Maybe this isn’t the year you can address it.

But you should at least know you’re making that choice. Because the alternative - assuming your site is fine without evidence - isn’t risk management. It’s wishful thinking.

Why 'it works well enough' is doing more damage than you realise

There’s a phrase that appears in almost every conversation about charity websites: "It works well enough."

What this usually means is: "When I use it on my laptop at my desk, it does what I need it to do, and I haven’t had any complaints, so it’s probably okay."

But 'probably okay' and 'well enough' are both relative to what you know about. If you don’t know that your mobile site takes 15 seconds to load, or that your donation form fails in Safari, or that your job application page isn’t accessible, then from your perspective everything is fine.

The problem is, the people experiencing these issues aren’t complaining. They’re just leaving.

Imagine the man pictured at the top of this article. He tries to donate on his phone during his commute. The page takes too long to load. He means to come back to it later. He doesn’t. You never know he tried.

Someone with a screen reader lands on your 'Get Involved' page. The headings are in the wrong order, the links aren't descriptive, the form labels are missing. They can’t navigate it. They leave. You never know they were there.

Someone tries to apply for a job. The application form isn’t keyboard accessible. They can’t complete it. They don’t email to tell you why. They just don't apply. You never know you lost them.

This is the hidden cost of 'works well enough'. It works well enough for the people it works for. For everyone else, it just doesn't work. And because digital failure is silent, you never see it happening.

The legal exposure you’re carrying without realising it

Let's be direct: if your organisation delivers public services and your website isn't accessible, you're in breach of the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018. If you're not covered by those regulations but your website isn't accessible, you may still be in breach of the Equality Act 2010.

Most charity leaders know this exists in the background. What they don't know is whether it applies to them, what their actual level of compliance is, or what would happen if someone complained.

That's not because the information isn't available. It's because looking it up properly means potentially discovering you're non-compliant, which then creates a different kind of pressure. Once you know, you can't unknow. Once you've identified the risk, not addressing it becomes harder to justify.

So many organisations stay in a state of deliberate ambiguity. Not quite ignoring it. Not quite dealing with it. Just hoping it doesn't become urgent.

But ambiguity isn't protection. If someone makes a formal complaint, "we didn't realise" isn't a defence. And the longer you've known that accessibility requirements exist without checking your compliance, the harder that position becomes to maintain.

Again, this might be a conscious risk you're choosing to take. Budgets are finite. Priorities have to be set. Sometimes you have to bet that this won't become urgent before you can address it.

But you should know you're making that bet. Because if it comes up, you're not dealing with a surprise. You're dealing with a known risk that you chose not to address when it was still manageable.

Choosing to know vs choosing to hope

The alternative to all of this isn’t necessarily fixing everything immediately. Sometimes it’s just choosing to operate with information rather than without it.

Getting an accessibility audit doesn't mean you have to fix every issue tomorrow. It means you know what you're dealing with, what's urgent, and what can wait. Running proper user testing doesn't commit you to a website rebuild. It tells you whether the site you have is actually working for the people you need to reach.

The organisations that handle digital well aren't the ones with perfect websites and unlimited budgets. They're the ones who know what they're working with, have prioritised what matters most, and are making deliberate decisions about what to address and when.

They're not hoping their accessibility is okay - they've checked. They're not assuming their forms work - they've tested them. They're not guessing about mobile performance - they've measured it.

That doesn't make them perfect. It makes them informed. And informed decisions are almost always better than uninformed ones, even when the decision is to leave something for now.

Because at least then you know what you're leaving, why you're leaving it, and what it might cost you. That's risk management. Everything else is just luck.

Start by knowing what you’re working with

If you're reading this and realising there are things about your website you’ve been meaning to check, an Impact Optimiser gives you a clear view of what’s actually there. We look at accessibility, user experience, conversion paths - the things most people don’t have time to examine properly - and give you the information you need to make informed decisions.

No obligation. No sales pitch. Just free answers to questions you’ve been carrying around.

The digital decisions you don’t know you’re making