Websites that support charities and community organisations

Charities and community organisations often serve several audiences at once: the people who need their support, the people who fund or donate to their work, and the wider public they are trying to reach. Getting this balance right requires more than good design. It means understanding who each visitor is, what they need to find, and how quickly they need to find it, particularly when a visitor may be stressed, time-pressed, or unfamiliar with the organisation altogether.

Castlegate has worked with three organisations supporting conservation, housing, and unpaid carers, each with different audiences, different priorities, and different technical requirements. Below, we look at the websites we built for Global Amphibians, Leeds Federated Housing Association, and York Carers Centre, showing how thoughtful planning and bespoke development can make essential information easier to access.

Global Amphibians

Before working with Castlegate, this amphibian conservation CIC had no established online identity: no branding, no website, and few ways of turning its conservation work into income.

We built the organisation’s identity from scratch, taking cues from organic forms and the markings found on amphibian skin to create a bold, flexible logo and visual style. That identity carries through to a new website that presents Global Amphibians’ education work, spanning primary school sessions through to university seminars and fieldwork, and gives supporters two ways to buy hand-drawn greetings cards: directly through the site or via the organisation’s Etsy shop.

The result is a professional online presence that helps Global Amphibians promote its educational work, strengthen its identity, and generate income to support future conservation projects.

Leeds Federated Housing Association

Leeds Federated needed a website that could serve two very different visitors: existing tenants looking for practical, day-to-day information, and prospective tenants or buyers browsing available homes. The housing association, which has provided affordable homes across Leeds, Wakefield, Kirklees, and North Yorkshire since 1975, found that its previous site left both groups struggling to find what they needed.

Over an eight-week planning phase, we worked with the team to map out clear top-level navigation, giving each audience its own route through the site. A new Current Developments section works in the same way as a property portal, letting visitors search, browse, and enquire about specific homes, while a dynamic, filterable glossary within the anti-social behaviour section helps tenants report issues correctly. Throughout, we retained Leeds Federated’s existing branding, giving it a cleaner, more contemporary presentation rather than starting from scratch.

The result is a website that makes everyday services easier for tenants to access while providing prospective residents with a clearer route to finding available homes.

An example of high end design for a charity organisation visualised on a desktop device

York Carers Centre

York Carers Centre supports unpaid carers across the city, many of whom do not immediately recognise themselves as carers or realise that support is available. Having built the charity’s previous website at an earlier stage in its development, Castlegate returned to address a familiar problem: years of expanding services had left the site cluttered and difficult to navigate, making it harder for visitors to find the right support quickly.

Our redesign puts audience identification first. The homepage separates visitors into clear groups from the outset, helping people recognise their own circumstances and move directly to relevant support. A filterable advice hub and an interactive events calendar, with sessions sortable by group and upcoming dates highlighted in the charity’s signature pink, reduce the effort involved in finding suitable support. A donation button fixed within the main navigation keeps fundraising visible throughout the website, reflecting the charity’s reliance on grants and public donations.

The result is a website that helps carers find support more quickly while making it easier for the charity to promote its services and encourage donations.

Learn more about York Carers Centre

Websites that make support easier to access

Global Amphibians, Leeds Federated, and York Carers Centre each serve people who may be stressed, unfamiliar with the organisation, or simply trying to find the right information quickly. Every decision we made, from navigation to visual identity, was shaped by that reality.

Whether you are a charity, community organisation, housing association, or not-for-profit, we build websites that help people access information, services, and support with confidence. By combining careful planning with bespoke development, we create websites that work for your organisation and the people who depend on it.

If you have a website project you would like to discuss, we would be pleased to hear from you. Call us on 01904 654 036 or email info@castlegateit.co.uk.

Websites that support charities and community organisations