Building great websites is our science and our passion.

We Help People Who Help People

We understand nonprofits. We understand the fundraising challenges, the budgeting process, the never-ending communication, outreach, and advocacy needs, and most of all, we understand the passion behind the cause. We see our role as helping to guide you through the key decisions of creating a great, effective, long-lasting website, share the best-practices that work for other nonprofits. We help represent your interests and articulate your needs and requirements to your service providers.

Essential Elements of Nonprofit Website Design

Mission and Need

People form opinions instantly. Through vivid imagery and effective text, we help you communicate the critical needs you address and how you make the world a better place.

An Emotional Connection

Nonprofits have many audiences. We help you emotionally connect and communicate your impact to your board, your donors, your community partners, your clients, the press, and even government agencies.

Advocacy & Outreach

Mapping calls-to-action with outcomes. Community engagement, advocacy, and outreach drive traffic to your website, which you can convert into volunteers, donations, and answers for clients.

Donor Platform Integration

Give your stakeholders a chance to make a difference. We can help you specify your needs and integrate the giving process and donor management platform of your choice into your website.

Fundraising & eCommerce

Revenue comes from many sources. We help you intelligently leverage eCommerce, crowd funding, and event management that enhances your brand without the cost of encryption and PCI compliance.

Keep It Current

Today’s news drives tomorrow’s outcomes. We build websites that make it easy to post news, blogs and videos to promote your causes and services.

Ready To Discuss Your Project?

Questions to ask us

How long have you worked with nonprofits?

Our first customer, which we signed up in 2002 and is still our customer today, is a nonprofit in the healthcare space.

What kind of nonprofit customers do you have?

We work with all kinds of nonprofits – health, children, mental health, clinic, volunteer, advocacy, clinical, fiscal projects, and foundations.

Security?

We maintain very secure hosting environments, and we are also prepared for a disaster by maintaining daily offsite backups that we keep for 90 days. We also help our customers decide how best to implement donor integration, fundraising, eCommerce, and crowd funding platforms so that security and PCI compliance shift to your service providers.

Why should we host with Luminys?

We are fast, reliable, and we are always there to answer questions. In addition to hosting your website, we also take care of theme updates, plugin updates, and WordPress core updates. When these have problems, we dive in and fix them.

How long does it take to design a website?

You should assume it will take 2 to 3 months, although we’ve been able to develop websites in under three weeks. The challenges are usually related to image selection and copy.

How do you handle pricing?

We should have an open discussion about your needs and figure out what works. When we present a proposal with a quote, we include a budget for image, plugin, and theme licensing, so when you get a price, it’s a firm price that doesn’t get re-negotiated.

Do you offshore? (NO!)

No, we do not offshore our development.

How do I control cost?

Preparation and project management. The best ways to control cost is to have your photography, text (copy), logo, key messages, key services, and perhaps even navigation already prepared.

Questions we will ask you

Who are your audiences?

Who are your clients? Who are your funders? What kind of donors do you have? Who are your partners? What kind of board members do you have? What should your website tell each of these audiences, and what would you like them to do once they come to your website?

How do you want to make people feel?

How should people perceive your brand? Do you invoke compassion, concern, anger, urgency? What kind of imagery or words should be used to create this feeling in your audience?

Do you have a logo, a style guide, or photography?

Any assets you already have – a logo, in-house photography or licensed imagery, a style guide – will help accelerate the project and reduce cost.

How do you engage donors and receive money?

How are donations made today, and do you want that to change? Do you have a PayPal account? A merchant account? A donor management system?

How do you measure your goodness?

As a nonprofit, you benefit people and make the world a better place. How do you measure this? By meals served? By reduced trips to the emergency room? By improving the lives of children? By expanding the voice of the under-served? How this is communicated has a direct impact on the effectiveness of your website, communication strategy, and fundraising efforts.

Do you have a schedule and budget?

Tell us your schedule and key milestones, and if you share your budget with us we will stretch as far as we can to give you the most for your dollar.

Who will be the key players?

Who is on your internal team and supporting team? Do you have a preferred graphic designer house, copy-writer, or photographer?