WordPress Websites for Nonprofits

Simple, Inexpensive Content Management for Nonprofits

WordPress has come a long way since it took the lead as the go-to blogging software. It became so popular with bloggers because it’s so easy to write news, journal-style entries or other short timely pieces.  Today, it’s more than just for blogging; Mashable, Smashing Magazine and Adobe Blogs use it. WordPress can be used to build professional websites (with regular ‘pages’ with great design and photos) and offers its new ‘blogging’ style as a place for companies and other entities to write and publish news and other timely information.

When nonprofits have volunteers that will help generate content for their website, but may not have the money to hire a website developer, WordPress can be a great, inexpensive alternative.  It’s easy to install, and thousands of free or low-cost ‘themes’ are available.  A ‘theme’ provides open-ended templates that can individualize a site, and keep it up to date with changing technology. Because the WordPress community is so large and varied, themes are updated frequently and support is plentiful online.  Themes can also be changed without content being lost.

How to set up a WordPress Website:

1. Go to WordPress.com and sign up, pick a name, theme, and get started. This ‘blog’ will be hosted on the WordPress server and your address (url) will be yoursite.wordpress.com

2. If you want a professional site, you need to choose a domain name like yoursite.com (or .net, .org or the other suffixes) and make sure it is not already owned. When you find one available, register this name with a domain registrar. Registration usually costs about $10-$20 per year. Then, you need web hosting – this doesn’t need to be at the same place where you registered the domain. Example: Pair.com (Pairnic.com is a registrar).

a. Many hosts offer one-click WordPress install.

b. If you’re building a professional site, you may want to hire a WordPress expert to install for security reasons.

Via a browser, go to the folder or address provide in 2a. to install wordpress. Fill in the form, click install, and it’s installed.