Digital Agency for Third Sector
Digital Agency for Third Sector
Most charity websites accumulate problems quietly. Content gets added without a clear structure. Pages that made sense three years ago no longer reflect how the organisation works. A mobile journey that was trackable on an iPhone in 2021 breaks on the devices people are using today. An accessibility issue that nobody noticed is turning away the very people the charity exists to serve.
These problems don’t announce themselves. They show up as slightly lower completion rates, slightly higher bounce rates, slightly more calls to the helpline from people who couldn’t find what they needed online. The cumulative cost is significant, but it’s rarely visible without a structured, analytical outside review.
A website and accessibility audit reveals what’s actually happening, not what you assumed was happening.
We review your website across five areas, working from the technical foundations up to the user experience and content.
Broken links, error pages, redirect chains, slow-loading assets, and pages that have been accidentally excluded from search engines. These are often easy to fix once they’re identified, but they’re invisible without the right tools and methodology. For charities that have migrated platforms, added content over many years, or inherited a website from a previous team, technical debt is almost always present.
More than half of charity website traffic comes from mobile devices — and for many charities serving younger audiences, people in crisis, or people in lower-income households, that proportion is higher still. We assess how your site performs on real devices and real connections, not just on a fast desktop in an office. Page load speed, layout stability, interaction responsiveness; these directly affect whether people stay and complete, or leave.
Can someone land on your website and quickly understand what you do, who you help, and what to do next? Is the navigation logical? Do your most important pages – your donate, refer, apply, find support pages – work the way they should? We look at your information architecture and key user journeys with fresh eyes, mapping where people are likely to get confused or give up.
Only a quarter of UK charities say their digital services are genuinely accessible. For a sector that disproportionately serves older people, people with disabilities, and those with low digital confidence, that’s a serious gap. We review your site against WCAG standards, checking colour contrast, keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, form labelling, alt text and more, to identify the specific issues that are creating barriers for real users.
Is your digital presence – your website, social channels, email, search visibility – doing the work it should? Is it reaching the right people, communicating clearly, and building the trust that drives action?
Out-of-date content damages trust. Inconsistent terminology confuses visitors and search engines alike. Pages written for internal audiences rather than external ones frustrate the people they’re supposed to help. We review a sample of your most important pages for clarity, accuracy, consistency and whether they’re actually doing the job they exist to do.
A prioritised list of issues and recommendations, structured by impact and effort. We distinguish between quick fixes your team can make this week, improvements that require developer support, and structural changes that might inform a future rebuild or migration decision.
We also give you an honest view of the overall picture – not to be alarming, but to give you and your leadership a clear basis for decision-making. Sometimes the audit confirms that the site is broadly sound and just needs targeted attention. Sometimes it reveals that the foundations are shaky enough that a more significant intervention is the right long-term answer. Either way, you’ll know what you’re actually dealing with.
Accessibility is sometimes framed as a legal obligation, and for public sector organisations in the UK it is, under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations. For charities and CICs it isn’t legally mandated in the same way, but the case for prioritising it is just as strong.
But that’s the stick. The carrot is understanding the people most likely to be excluded by an inaccessible website are often the same people your organisation was set up to help.
Older people navigating your services; People with visual impairments trying to access your advice content; People in crisis using a phone with heightened anxiety & shaking hands; Someone whose first language isn’t English working through a complex form.
Accessibility isn’t a nice-to-have layer on top of a website, nor a legal burden – It’s the difference between a website that works for your mission, or one that silently excludes the people who need it most.
A website and accessibility audit is a diagnostic. It tells you what needs attention and in what order. What you do with the findings depends on what you have capacity for.
Some charities take the output and work through it with their existing team or developer. Others want support implementing the fixes, or discover through the audit that a more fundamental rebuild is the right next step. We’re happy to advise & help with either, but the audit is a standalone piece of work with no obligation attached.
If your audit reveals that a rebuild or migration is warranted, that conversation sits under our web design and development work rather than here.
→ Find out about web design and development for charities
Request a website and accessibility audit Tell us about your site — what platform it’s on, roughly when it was last built or significantly updated, and what’s frustrating you about it. We’ll confirm whether an audit is the right starting point.
→ Get in touch
Not sure if this is the right audit? If you’re uncertain whether your primary problem is technical, content-related or something broader, a digital maturity audit gives you the wider picture first.