Charity case study: One charity. Three websites. Three very different jobs to do.

When a charity says it needs a new website, it can sound like a fairly straightforward job.

Make it look more modern. Add some lovely photographs. Sort out the donate button. Make sure people can find the contact page. Job done.

Except that charities rarely have just one audience, one message or one thing they need people to do.

They may need to reach service users, volunteers, donors, members, partners and supporters, all looking for very different information. A website that tries to speak to everyone at once can quickly become a digital filing cabinet: technically full of useful things, but not particularly helpful when somebody needs an answer quickly.

Our work with Lions Clubs International British Isles is a perfect example of why charity websites need more just than a tidy design.

Since 2023, we have worked with the Lions team on three separate websites: Lions Recycle for Sight, Lions Message in a Bottle, and their main Lions Clubs International British Isles website.

Three websites. One organisation. Three very different jobs to do.

Starting with the problem, not the pages

At Web Goddess, we do not start a charity website project by asking how many pages you want or what colours you fancy.

We start by asking what the website needs to fix, improve or make easier.

Because a charity website should not simply sit online looking worthy. It should help real people do real things: find support, donate items, join a local group, volunteer, understand a service or access important information without needing to make a phone call first.

For Lions Clubs International British Isles, that meant recognising that their different projects and audiences needed different online journeys.

The person trying to donate an old pair of glasses does not need the same information as somebody considering joining their local Lions club. And somebody looking for emergency support information through Message in a Bottle is on a different journey again.

Trying to squash everything into one website would not necessarily have made things simpler. In fact, it could easily have made things harder to find.

Lions Recycle for Sight: turning repeated questions into a self-serve answer

Lions Recycle for Sight is a UK-wide programme collecting unwanted spectacles and hearing aids for redistribution to people who need them.

It is a brilliantly practical initiative. Lots of people have old glasses sitting in drawers at home, and lots of those people would happily donate them rather than throw them away.

There was just one rather important problem: people did not know where to take them.

Without a clear online home for the initiative, members of the public were repeatedly contacting Lions HQ in Birmingham with the same question:

That might sound like a small issue. But when a charity team is answering the same easily solvable query again and again, that is time being taken away from the work that actually needs a human being involved.

This was never just a case of building a nicer-looking website.

The real job was to remove a barrier for the public and reduce unnecessary admin for the Lions team.

So, we created a dedicated Recycle for Sight website built around the questions people were actually asking.

At the heart of the website is a searchable location map showing participating collection points across the UK. Instead of needing to call or email, visitors can search for their nearest place to donate their spectacles or hearing aids and get the information they need there and then.

We also created clear, practical content answering the questions visitors were most likely to have:

• What can I donate?

• Where can I donate it?

• What happens to my old glasses?

• How can my Lions club get involved?

No overcomplication. No making people dig through six pages of background information before finding the thing they came for. Just useful information, in the right place, at the right time.

Since launching in October 2023, the Recycle for Sight website has attracted hundreds of visitors every day. More importantly, calls to HQ asking where people can donate their glasses have dropped dramatically.

That is the kind of website result we care about.

Not simply more traffic for the sake of a pretty report, but a website making life easier for the public and handing valuable time back to the charity team.

A website that can grow with the project

The other important part of the Recycle for Sight website is that it was built to keep working as the initiative grows.

As more Lions clubs become collection points, the map can be updated to reflect this. We continue to manage it on a monthly basis, adding new locations and keeping information accurate.

That matters, because charity websites are not finished the moment they launch.

Information changes. Projects grow. People move on. New volunteers get involved. Old contact details quietly lurk on pages until somebody points out they have not worked for three years.

A website that is helpful today but impossible to maintain tomorrow is not a useful long-term investment.

For charities in particular, sustainability is not just about the technology used to build a site. It is about making sure the website remains manageable, accurate and genuinely helpful after launch day.

Next: Lions Message in a Bottle - giving a vital initiative its own clear space

Following the Recycle for Sight website, we were asked to create a dedicated website for Lions Message in a Bottle.

Message in a Bottle is a simple but potentially life-saving initiative. It helps people keep their essential personal and medical details in a place where emergency services can easily find them if needed.

This project had a very different purpose from Recycle for Sight.

Someone visiting the Message in a Bottle website is not looking for a donation point. They need to understand quickly what the scheme is, who it is for, how it works and how they or someone they care for can access it.

That kind of information needs to be clear, calm and easy to navigate. People should not have to hunt through a large organisational website to find the details of a scheme that could be genuinely important to them.

Giving Message in a Bottle its own dedicated online space meant the initiative could be explained clearly, without being buried amongst wider organisational information.

This is something many charities struggle with. They have multiple services, campaigns and projects, all competing for attention on one website. Eventually, everybody gets a menu item, nobody gets a particularly clear journey, and visitors are expected to work it all out for themselves.

Separate websites are not always the answer. But when an initiative has its own audience, its own information and its own action people need to take, a focused website can make that journey far easier.

Most recently: Lions Clubs British Isles - helping future members take the next step

After working with Lions on Recycle for Sight and Message in a Bottle, we were invited to redesign the main public website for Lions Clubs International British Isles.

This was the most recent of the three projects, and once again, it had a very different job to do.

Rather than supporting one specific initiative, the main Lions website needed to introduce the organisation itself: who Lions are, what they do in communities across the British Isles, and how people can become involved.

Membership organisations need websites that do more than list committees, projects and news updates. They need to help potential members picture themselves being part of the organisation and make the next step feel straightforward.

For Lions, an important part of that journey was helping people find their nearest local group.

So, the new website includes a map of current Lions clubs, giving prospective members a clear route from “I would like to get involved” to “there is a group near me”.

Again, the design matters. The website needed to feel modern, trustworthy and representative of the organisation.

But the most important question was still:

What does this website need people to be able to do?

In this case, it needed to help people discover Lions, understand the impact of its community work and connect with a local club.

From one website project to a trusted partnership

The order of these projects matters, because this was not a case of building three websites all at once.

Our relationship with Lions began with a very specific challenge: helping the public find somewhere to donate their unwanted glasses while reducing repeated calls to HQ.

Once that project was working successfully, we were trusted to support another important initiative through the Message in a Bottle website.

More recently, that relationship developed further with the redesign of the main public-facing website for Lions Clubs International British Isles.

For us, that is a significant part of the story.

A website project should never be about building something, launching it and disappearing into the digital sunset. The best results come when we understand the organisation, recognise what each project needs to achieve and provide ongoing support as its digital presence grows.

With Lions, each website has had its own audience and purpose, but the approach has remained consistent: clear user journeys, practical solutions and websites built to support the real-world work of the charity.

What made these charity website projects successful?

The answer is not simply that we built three websites.

The important part was understanding that each website needed to solve a different problem.

For Recycle for Sight, that meant making donation points easy to find and reducing avoidable calls to HQ.

For Message in a Bottle, it meant giving an important public-facing initiative a clear and accessible home online.

For the main Lions Clubs International British Isles website, it meant helping potential members understand the organisation and connect with a local club.

The common thread across all three projects was strategy.

Not strategy in the corporate, twenty-page-document-that-nobody-reads sense.

Strategy in the useful sense:

• Who is visiting this website?

• What are they trying to do?

• What is stopping them doing it right now?

• What information do they actually need?

• What does the charity team need the website to take off their plate?

• How will the site stay useful after it launches?

Those questions shape websites that do more than simply look good. They create websites that support the day-to-day work of the organisation.

A charity website should earn its keep

Charities are often doing an enormous amount with limited time, limited resources and small teams wearing a frankly ridiculous number of hats.

A website should not add to that pressure.

It should reduce repeated enquiries. It should make support or information easier to find. It should help people donate, volunteer, join or get involved. It should be straightforward to manage. And it should represent the organisation properly, without staff having to apologise for a site that stopped reflecting their work years ago.

That is why we do not build charity websites around a wishlist of pages.

We build them around the people who need to use them and the organisation that needs them to work.

Our work with Lions Clubs International British Isles shows exactly what that can look like in practice: three websites developed over time, each built for a clear purpose, each helping people take action, and each supporting the wider mission of the organisation.

Because a charity website should never just say what you do.

It should help you do more of it.

Does your charity website have a clear job to do?

Your website might look acceptable on the surface, but if your team is still answering questions the site should solve, struggling to keep information updated or watching visitors disappear without taking action, it may not be working hard enough for you.

At Web Goddess, we design strategy-first websites for charities and non-profits that need clarity, purpose and common sense: not jargon, overcomplication or another digital headache.

And, we stick around to make sure your website is part of your larger digital marketing playbook (and can manage that for you too if you need us to).

Let’s talk about what your charity website needs to make easier.

Book a Discovery Call to find out more.