WordPress alternatives – should you use Access Charity Websites rather than agencies?

What are the differences between Access Charity Websites and website agencies?

Access Charity Websites is a solution that creates websites specifically for the charity and Not For Profit sectors. Offering a range of pre-designed templates or bespoke designs, along with niche functionality and resources that are tailored to the unique requirements associated with charity organisations including:

• Donation and Gift Aid processing
• Fundraising tools
• Event registration and online shop capability
• Easy donor, supporter and service user journeys

Alternatively, a website agency, creates websites for a variety of businesses and organisations, without necessarily being a specialist in these respective areas. Website agencies typically offer custom website design and development services, along with a range of digital marketing services such as search engine optimisation (SEO), social media marketing, and email marketing.

While both Access Charity Websites and a website agency can create a website for a charity organisation, the main differences between the two are the level of niche expertise and the customisation and features that are implemented.

An agency can develop a website to meet your bespoke requirements, however, this can potentially take from anywhere between two to five months depending on the level of customisation [2]. Alternatively,  Access Charity Websites is a subscription-based, out-the-box platform that is designed to meet your needs from the outset which takes considerably less time to implement and go live.

Read our definitive guide to developing a successful charity website

Why should a charity consider an alternative to WordPress CMS?

Although agency-built WordPress sites are used by organisations across a number of sectors, there are certain factors that could potentially contribute towards a charity opting for an alternative to WordPress. A charity organisation will have unique requirements due to their mission, duty of care, and often limited budget and digital marketing experience.

For this reason, the following elements may contribute towards a charity organisation opting for an alternative solution:

Costs of running the site 

Despite WordPress technically being free, developing a website on this platform can still become expensive. Charities will typically be pushed down a path of the expensive and time-consuming process of design, and the web development effort required to bring those designs to life. This is also the case if you wish to customise your website with the plugins required to meet the specific requirements of charities, while there are also hosting expenses to factor into your budget. With a charity’s budget generally being more modest than that of a corporate organisation, it can be a wise decision to opt for a more affordable alternative and put these resources to the causes that truly matter to you.

Lack of technical experience

A charity may not have the technical expertise required to fully understand the complexities associated with running a WordPress website, especially where customisation is concerned. You may not have the staff or resources to manage this efficiently and therefore prefer a simpler option. This most commonly takes the form of an ‘out-the-box’ solution, whereby the features and templates are predesigned, which require less training to learn and function to the required standard from the outset.

Potential security risks

A major argument for seeking WordPress alternatives are the potential issues regarding security. Charities often deal with sensitive information from their supporters and service users which can be targeted by cyberattacks. Although WordPress is secure if managed properly, the technicalities associated with the platform – such as the base CMS, plugin and theme functionality – can pose potential risks if not updated regularly. Given the potential nature of the kind of client information that could be exposed in an attack, it’s of paramount importance that it remains secure and can therefore play a deciding factor in choosing an alternative charity website CMS.

Charity specific requirements

Charities commonly have unique requirements for their website such as the ability to accept one-off and regular donations, process Gift Aid, manage events, and advertise volunteer opportunities. While WordPress can provide bespoke functionality through various plugins, the CMS was not developed specifically for the charity and Not For Profit sectors. Therefore, a suitable option is a CMS platform that was built to meet the specialist requirements of charities.

Sufficient level of support

Due to a charity’s potential lack of technical expertise, they may require more personalised support than what is available via WordPress’ community support. In addition, an agency’s time can often be spread thin due to the number of clients they have across many sectors. Alternatively, a charity-focused CMS provider could afford the time and resources to meet the suitable level of support for your website.

Watch our webinar about how to pick the right Not For Profit website provider

Why work with Access Charity Websites?

At Access, we have the knowledge and resources to meet your specific requirements as a charity organisation. For example, our Access Charity Websites solution is a charity content management system (CMS) that was built with the requirements of charities at its core and provides sector-focused, simple-to-use functionality to assist you in the successful day-to-day management of your website.

By opting to use the services of a provider that implements a charity specific solution such as Access Charity Websites, you can experience the following benefits outlined below.

Built specifically for charity organisations

At Access, we’ve ensured that Access Charity Websites focuses on enhancing the fundraising capabilities of charities by automating the following areas:

• Donations – Automated Payment forms are built specifically to handle donations, with additional functionality to allow for one-off or regular giving setups, gift aid and match funding. You can also set them up specifically for certain fundraising campaigns to track the donations separately. These can be embedded within key areas of your website as a ‘call to action’ which allows your supporters to easily and safely make a donation through a secure process. And of course GDPR compliance is baked right in.

• Direct debits – Direct debit payments are an option for your donors and are paid to you on a monthly basis.

• Gift Aid – Our income dashboards provide access to live data of the potential value of your Gift Aid claims based on your website donations – simplifying the Gift Aid claiming process.

• Matched funding – Enable matched funding from corporate partners against your fundraising campaigns to double the amount you raise.

• Cover of costs – Your supporters can opt to support your charity directly by contributing towards expenses such as energy bills, which in turn help to ensure you can continue your good work by supporting your cause(s).

Not only does this automation simplify these crucial processes for you and your donors, but it also saves valuable time which enables you to focus on priority areas of your charity such as campaign strategies, event planning, and volunteer vacancies.

Find out how to make the most of your online fundraising

A self-service CMS that requires minimal training

A charity-specific platform is more likely to offer a self-service CMS solution, whereby once implementation is complete and you have received the required training, you then have the freedom to manage your website independently.

During the implementation of Access Charity Websites, we provide you with the required training to manage features including:

• Webpage creation and editing
• Dashboard tutorials
• Embedding images
• Link creation
• Form creation

Our approach ensures that typical agency fees for training are avoided, while ensuring a swift implementation programme that encourages you to manage your own website at the earliest opportunity.

A scalable CMS option

Access has your potential long-term ambitions at the centre of our charity CMS solution. For this reason, ‘scalability’ is a key feature, whereby the website is designed to maintain large amounts of traffic, data, and transactions, while capable of adapting to the growth of your organisation over a period of time. This growth can take several factors into account such as additional data and number of users.

This is a fundamental element of Access Charity Websites, as the scalability of our charity CMS provides:

• Reliability – By providing a reliable hosting structure with the ability to sustain large volumes of traffic without crashing or slowing down
• Flexibility – As a Zapier partner, our solution connects with over 500 other applications that you know and love such as Microsoft Office, MailChimp, Survey Monkey, GMail, Twitter and more
• Simplicity – A user-friendly system that simplifies navigation and the overall user experience
• Security – Designed with robust security features that protect the sensitive information of you and your supporters
• Visibility – Via real-time analytics that provide key insights to gain a better understanding of your donors and make informed decisions

At Access, our scalable charity CMS is designed to support your charity’s long-term goals, while providing a positive experience for your donors, volunteers, supporters, and service users during the process.

Find out more about our charity CMS

Allows for integration with other charity solutions

Working with us will enable you to integrate your charity website with other platforms that support the day-to-day operations of your charity.

For example, Access Charity Websites has the capability of integrating with relevant platforms within our software suite such as Access Charity CRM. With CRM integration, it provides you with further visibility of your supporters' donor journey, helping you to understand their behaviours and personalise your campaigns to adhere to their interests.

In addition, depending on the pricing package you opt for, Access Charity Websites can also connect with Zapier, which in turn enables you to integrate with over 5000 apps which cover areas including:

• Email marketing
• Customer relationship management
• Project management
• Social media platforms
• And more!

These integrations can essentially enhance the user experience of your website, while providing additional insights that can lead to increased productivity in the key areas that matter most to your charity.

Find out the benefits of charity website-CRM integration

More clarity on costs

Not only can hiring a third party to manage the web design of your charity website be expensive, but it can significantly range in price, making it difficult to budget for this approach. This is supported by one report stating that the cost of outsourcing to a web designer can range between £250 and £10,000+ for a project [3].

The following example shares approximate costs of an average small website build using a solution such as WordPress:

Up-front costs

Design and development - £800 to £1,500

Domain - £2.99 to £100/year

Total upfront cost - £802.99 to £1,600

Ongoing costs

Hosting - £3 to £45/month

Content updates - £0 to £250/month

Total ongoing costs - £3 to £295/month

While this provides you with an insight, you should be aware that factors such as the complexity of customisations, the experience of the web designer, and the timeframe for development will influence the up-front design costs.

Alternatively, you can be clearer on cost from the outset by opting for subscription based, website builder software such as Access Charity Websites. With our approach, you can remove these costing elements by managing the design yourself with our ‘drag and drop’ functionality. In addition, this allows us to take care of all the technicalities such as hosting and security steps, leaving you with a clear monthly subscription fee for you to factor into your budget.

Why Access Charity Websites may not be suitable for you

While charity website software providers undoubtedly have their benefits – particularly regarding their niche area of expertise – there can be potential drawbacks. Areas for consideration are largely associated with customisation and the factors this can influence.

We delve into more detail below:

Offer predominantly ‘out-the-box’ functionality

Access Charity Websites offer a charity website platform that aims to meet the specific requirements of a charity organisation. This solution will therefore provide out-the-box functionality that achieves this while maintaining a simple user experience that doesn’t require specialist knowledge.

While this may be an advantage for many, others may wish to have more flexibility with their website by customising it beyond the parameters that a charity CMS such as Access Charity Websites allows. Whether this relates to building your website through coding or applying bespoke plug-ins, this won’t be possible with our CMS platform.

More difficult to create your unique brand

Building on the previous point, it can be argued that the lack of customisation from Access Charity Websites makes it more difficult for a charity to express their unique brand. Moreover, as other charities may use the same platform, there could be a fear that these websites may look similar.

While it can technically be argued that the starter package of Access Charity Websites doesn’t provide the same level of customisation as WordPress, for example, it still provides a broad enough selection of templates, colour schemes and CMS content features that allow you to stand out from others in your sector. And there is an additional package available which allows for more bespoke design by having a strategy session with one of our specialists to discuss your requirements.

Can be costly if you wish to change platform

Highlighting Access Charity Websites as an example, if your website uses this CMS and wish to move your website to a different CMS platform entirely in the future, there will be time and cost associated with the move. However, this would be the case with any website platform switch as it would essentially be another website project you are taking on.

We would provide you with all your content and data as you will own this information from the outset, which is a key reason why we can charge a significantly lower fee to use our platform and for the ongoing development.

The inconvenience of moving to another platform can be avoided by testing the CMS prior to implementation. One of the most common approaches is to engage with the software via a demo which enables you to understand its functionality and gain a better idea of whether it suits your requirements.

By taking preparatory steps such as this, it is more likely that you will make an informed decision that reduces the chances of buyer regret.

Book our demo

May be too feature rich for smaller organisations

While Access Charity Websites offer a solution that is built specifically for your requirements, the functionality may still feel overwhelming for a smaller charity organisation. This is especially the case if the charity CMS is the first platform you have experienced.

With Access Charity Websites, it provides the ability to generate income using a variety of integrated methods such as:

• Appeals and campaigns
• One-off and regular giving campaigns
• ‘In memory’ appeals
• Individual fundraiser pages
• Matched funding

Despite potentially feeling overloaded with information, this would still be a less technical platform than WordPress, with the latter allowing additional customisation which has associated complexities. In addition, our experts are on hand to provide the sufficient training you require, enabling you to manage your website to the required standard.

The buck stops with you!

As the previous point outlines, once our experts share their knowledge during the training phase, you will then be granted with the independence to manage your website as you see fit.

Although this responsibility should be embraced, it also makes you accountable for your own decisions. This level of accountability may not suit some charities and instead seek to outsource much of their website management to ensure that the website is overseen by somebody with greater knowledge to ensure their site reaches its full potential.

However, relying on a third party can have its drawbacks as their schedule can potentially influence the management of your website.

Alternatively, we share access to additional support such as help with bespoke design work and strategic guidance and training. These services can be accessed and used as required, meaning that you only get charged for what you use.

Why work with a website agency?

A website agency has a broad wealth of knowledge surrounding digital marketing which can enable them to work with organisations across all sectors. For example, a website agency that uses a third-party CMS such as WordPress or Drupal allows for customisation that can meet advanced bespoke functionality that you may require.

Investing in the services of a website agency that uses these platforms can potentially lead to the benefits outlined below.

A popular CMS option

WordPress is undoubtedly a popular CMS platform among organisations across a number of sectors. It’s popularity is strongly represented by a large and active community of developers and users, who create and share key resources such as themes, plugins, and tutorials to allow others to learn and improve their website. This in turn creates a strong trust signal, as the number of people who use this CMS are a testament to the trustworthiness and overall quality of the product.

Putting this into perspective, a study found that over 59% of charities used WordPress as their charity CMS [4]. Unsurprising as 78% of charities registered with the Charity Commission in England and Wales are micro to small organisations (income of under £100,000) that may not require much more than a basic content website.  

A highly customisable CMS

Given WordPress’ flexibility, it can feel like a commonsense option to implement and customise the CMS in line with the requirements of your charity. A website agency can therefore meet your bespoke requirements by customising your website around your branding guidelines and ethos.

A customisable CMS such as WordPress provides a set of core out-the-box features and functionality that can be modified through plugins, extensions, or custom development.

Common examples can include:

• Custom themes – Change the look and feel of your website
• Custom plugins – Add new functionality to the charity CMS
• Custom content types – Better organise and manage your content
• Custom workflows – Automate content creation and publishing processes
• Custom user roles and permissions – Control access to certain parts of your charity CMS

Access to advanced features

As outlined in the previous point, a website agency that uses WordPress is a customisable option to meet your charity’s requirements. This is commonly achieved through advanced features such as coding or implementing plugins, whereby an agency will add specific features to the CMS to enable various forms of customisation.

There are a number of plugins that can customise key areas of your website surrounding:

• Content management – Manage your website’s content with custom post types and custom fields
• E-commerce – Sell products on your website such as an online charity shop that consists of a shopping cart and a payment gateway
• SEO – Optimises your charity website for search engines with on-page optimisation, sitemap generation, and meta tags
• Security – Help to keep your website secure with malware scanning, firewalls and login protection
• Social media – Integrates your charity website with social media platforms to enable feeds, sharing, and logins
• Performance optimisation – Help speed up your website and improve its performance with caching, minification, and image optimisation
• Contact forms – Creates custom contact forms for your website with features including form builders, spam protection, and email notifications

By implementing these plugins, you can customise your website to your choosing, allowing it to operate to the required standard agreed by both you and the respective agency.

Can meet the requirements of larger charities

Larger charities are generally more likely to require complex functionality, including the number of features and their ability to make the website bespoke.

A website agency will have the resources to meet these requirements. With WordPress, if the core functionality doesn’t offer enough flexibility to meet the vision of your charity website, the agency can then customise it to your standards.

It should be noted that the expense of the project will be reflected by the level of customisation of your website. However, if you are a larger charity with a deep budget, this approach may be suitable for you.

Provides expertise across digital marketing

A website agency typically has expertise in a wide range of digital marketing areas. For this reason, they can provide you with expert guidance and support by sharing insights into marketing channels and tactics relating to the following:

• Search engine optimization (SEO) – Ability to optimise your website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs)
• Pay-per-click (PPC) – Creating and managing online ads that appear in search engine results pages, social media platforms, and other websites
• Social media marketing – Creating and managing social media accounts, relevant content, and engaging with followers to build your charity’s presence on these platforms
• Email marketing – Creating and sending emails to customers and subscribers to promote causes, events, volunteering opportunities, and/or content
• Content marketing – Strategies of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain supporters
• Analytics and reporting – Analysing data from your digital marketing channels to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and make data-driven decisions
• Web design and development – Creating and maintaining a user-friendly, responsive, and optimised charity website

By applying these areas of expertise to your charity website, it will help your organisation raise brand awareness, while meeting the interests of potential supporters and reach your donation targets.

Why a website agency may not be suitable for you

Despite the appealing nature of the digital marketing expertise and bespoke feature flexibility that a website agency can offer, you should be wary of the potential issues this approach can bring. While customisation may sound great in theory, it can cause unwanted complexities that you should be aware of prior to implementation.

We outline the related issues in further detail below.

High maintenance management

Working with a website agency who uses WordPress provides you with the opportunity to customise your charity website. While we have outlined the benefits, you should be aware that this approach requires high maintenance management.

Due to customisation involving the modifying of code and/or configuration of the software, it can introduce new complexities and dependencies. The factors to consider include:

• Compatibility issues – With other software or systems which requires additional effort to resolve
• Upgrades and updates – More complex than implementing an out-the-box platform and may need re-implementing or re-testing after upgrades or updates are completed
• Training and onboarding – May require additional training and onboarding due to a lack of experience with the new, unique features
• Security issues – Customisation can introduce vulnerabilities which require additional efforts to ensure the system remains secure and up-to-date

Before deciding to work with a website agency, you should understand the level of customisation you require. If an out-the-box approach meets your requirements, you could save yourself a lot of wasted time and expense.

Pose a potential security risk

The customisation functionality offered by website agencies can potentially cause security risks to your charity website. One of the main culprits for this are plugins, which can cause a variety of security risks alone. And with one study finding that approximately 97% of their website vulnerabilities were due to plugins and themes [5], it highlights a genuine cause for concern.

Plugins can therefore cause various security risks caused by:

• Malicious code injection

• Outdated plugins

• Poorly coded plugins

• Insecure configuration

• Plugin conflicts

These security risks not only leave your website open to attacks, but in more extreme cases, hackers can take control of key areas of your charity website. This is a serious issue as sensitive supporter information can be stolen, which is damaging to both the people involved and your reputation as a charity.

The privacy of your supporters should be prioritised and play a key factor when weighing up the potential risks posed through plugin customisation.

Additional hosting and update costs

If you’re considering working with a website agency to develop your website, you should factor the additional costs that are likely to be incurred due to the management required from third parties.

With an agency, hosting charges will likely apply, the costs of which will vary depending on several factors such as:

• Type of hosting
• Size of your charity website
• Charity website traffic
• Features and services required

Frequent updates will also need to take place, which can lead to additional fees depending on the type of plugins that have been implemented. The number of updates and the frequency of these will depend on the level of customisation of your charity website. Put simply, the more plugins and coding that have been implemented, the more regularly the updates will take place. Although many plugins are free, if a premium package has been used, this can become expensive as you will be charged for each new update.

When considering hosting and customisation costs, it’s crucial that you refer to a clear budget to make a sensible decision.

May not suit a charity’s budget

Continuing from the previous point, your budget will be a key indicator in deciding whether working with a website agency is a worthwhile investment.

Given the flexible nature of a website agency in terms of bespoke functionality, this can quickly become expensive if not planned correctly. In addition to these costs, there are also other elements including hosting, updates, and, depending on the agreement you have with the respective website agency, additional training and support costs.

For charity organisations with a large budget, this may be a wise investment. However, if you’re a small to medium sized charity that needs to be more cautious around costs, it may be worth weighing up your options and potentially opting for a less technical CMS.

Support subject to agency’s schedule

It’s important to remember that a website agency will work with many clients over a number of sectors.

Their time can therefore be limited, which is unpractical if you are faced with an issue that urgently needs resolving. Despite an emergency requiring swift action, your response may be subject to your website agency’s availability, which could potentially cause long-term problems with your day-to-day processes or even security breaches.

When deciding on who to work with – and the CMS platform they offer – you should consider the level of third party management you require or if you’d be better suited to manage a more customised platform yourself. By choosing the latter, informed decisions can potentially be made from the outset.

Access Charity Websites vs agencies – which should you choose?

As a charity, it would be advisable to implement an affordable charity CMS that meets your unique requirements, while providing the freedom to safely manage your day-to-day processes without a high risk of any security breaches.

Access Charity Websites offers a CMS that has been built by charity professionals specifically for your sector. The features that the solution provides should meet your requirements with its out-the-box functionality. Where security is concerned, Access offers 24/7 monitoring to ensure your website operates safely. If we detect suspicious activity, an alert will notify one of our experts so they can intervene from the outset, at any day or time.

This out-the-box CMS provides a user-friendly experience that requires minimal training, empowering you to manage your charity website to your own high standards without the time restraints of relying on a third party.

Alternatively, a website agency that uses WordPress will be able to implement bespoke features to meet your specific requirements. As an agency, they can also manage your website on your behalf and provide a number of digital marketing expertise, while taking responsibility of hosting and any updates that are required. However, while this approach undoubtedly offers increased flexibility where customisation is concerned, you should remember it can incur additional fees and can potentially increase the risk of security breaches relating to your supporters depending on the use of plugins and level of security and monitoring set up by the agency.

Regardless of which approach you decide to take, we strongly recommend that you contact both Access and website agencies to make an informed decision for yourself. However, if you are a charity that’s looking to implement a website with easy to use, charity specific functionality out-the-box, we believe that Access Charity Websites would be a suitable platform to consider.

Speak to our experts

Choosing a suitable website provider is an essential component in not only ensuring that your charity website operates to the required standard, but it also successfully reflects your ethos as a charity. Having a clear understanding of the distinct differences a specialist solution such as Access Charity Websites and website agencies can respectively offer can therefore allow you to make an informed decision on which approach is better suited to your requirements.

At Access, we encourage you to not only look into WordPress alternatives, but also to research further afield than the ‘Access Charity Websites vs WordPress’ comparison by weighing up all the options available to you before making a final decision. However, why not speak to us in the meantime?

Our experts are readily available to answer any questions or concerns you may have and guide you in the right direction.