A mission worth funding still has to be found and trusted before someone commits their time or their donation to it. We help non-profit organizations build the kind of online presence that turns a passing visitor into a donor or a volunteer for the long term.
Budgets are tighter here than in most other sectors, and every dollar spent on marketing has to justify itself to a board, a funder, or your own conscience. Here’s what that means for how we work with non-profit clients:
A grassroots society running its first fundraiser needs something different from a multi-program foundation managing several campaigns at once, so we build the mix below around whichever stage your organization is at.
People searching for a cause to support or a program to join are often deciding between several organizations doing similar work and showing up clearly in that search matters. We build SEO around the specific programs and outcomes your organization delivers, so the page someone lands on answers what they came looking for.
Eligible non-profits can access up to $10,000 a month in free Google search advertising through the Google Ad Grants program, a budget most for-profit businesses never get access to. We help organizations apply for and manage that grant, since it comes with its own compliance rules around click-through rates and keyword quality that can get an account suspended if they’re ignored.
Supporters tend to respond more to a short video of the actual work you do than to a polished graphic making the same claim, and that’s especially true for causes. We build social content around real stories from the people and communities you serve, with the right consent in place before anything gets published.
Several jobs have to happen on the same page, explaining the mission clearly and making it simple to donate, while also giving a funder enough information to trust the organization with a grant. We design around that reality, and the finished site belongs to your organization outright, with nothing holding it hostage to a particular platform if your board ever wants to change providers.
A spike in traffic around a single campaign doesn’t help much if it doesn’t turn into supporters who stick around. We help non-profits track what’s building a base of long-term donors and volunteers, not just what generated a short-term bump, and adjust the plan as your programs and funding priorities shift.
Foundations and community societies are among the causes we’ve built websites for. The projects section below highlights a handful of that work.
It was a true pleasure working with the team at First Page Marketing! Our experience was fantastic, with their exceptional customer service, to the careful design that went into details and attention they paid to our feedback as they ensured our ideas were translated into concepts and final products we were happy with. We felt supported from the very beginning, through the entire process, until the end.
~ Renae Regehr
Care For Women
Marketing budgets at a non-profit face more scrutiny than almost anywhere else, and that scrutiny is fair. We’d rather earn a renewed budget line each year by showing concrete results than assume our value is obvious. When your funding priorities shift or a program winds down, tell us and the plan changes with it, no separate negotiation required.
Non-profit leaders tend to ask us a similar set of questions before committing to a marketing partner:
There’s no universal answer, since budgets here depend heavily on your funding structure and board approval process, but many small- to mid-sized non-profits start with a modest monthly retainer and grow it as campaigns prove their worth. What matters more than hitting a specific number is matching the plan to what your board can actually approve. At FirstPage Marketing, that’s the conversation we have first with any new non-profit client.
A Google Ad Grants account can start driving traffic within weeks of approval, though the application and setup process itself can take a few weeks on its own. Organic SEO moves more slowly and typically needs a few months before it gains any real footing in search results. At FirstPage Marketing, we usually make getting the ad grant application in early a priority, since it tends to produce visible movement while SEO is still building in the background.
For most non-profits, an active Google Ad Grants account brings in traffic fastest, and it costs nothing beyond the time to manage it well. SEO builds a more durable base of visitors over time but takes longer to show results. Social media rarely drives donations directly, but it’s often where someone first hears about your organization before they ever visit your site. Leaning on more than one of these tends to work better than staking everything on a single channel, and that’s generally how we set things up for non-profit clients.
We build reporting around donations and program sign-ups rather than raw traffic or impressions, since that’s what a board actually wants to see at the next meeting. You’ll deal with the same person at FirstPage Marketing throughout, rather than catching a new contact up on your mission every time you connect. If your organization runs a Google Ad Grants account, we fold its compliance status into that same reporting rather than handling it separately.
No, and that matters more here than in most industries, since your board may need to redirect funding on short notice. Your website and content stay with your organization no matter what and cancelling never means starting from scratch with a new provider. Most non-profits we work with keep the arrangement going well past any initial term, typically because the monthly reporting makes the return easy to defend at the next board meeting.
We’re here to listen to you. Tell us what you need or where you want to go. We’ll help you find the best solution.
