NGO, charity and school websites in East Africa: earn trust before you ask

An organisation that asks for money or time is asking for trust first, whether the person reading is a donor, a parent, a teacher or a volunteer. Many NGO websites in Tanzania and Kenya hide the very things that build it, such as where the money goes and how to take part. Two concepts from our gallery show another way.

Mizizi Trust is a concept site we designed for an invented conservation charity based in Tanga, and Anga Dome is one for an invented science centre and planetarium in Nairobi. Neither organisation exists.

Show where each dollar goes before the donate button

On many charity sites, the money question is buried in an annual report PDF. Mizizi puts "Your money" in the main menu. The trust plans to send $62 of every $100 to field programmes, and a worked example splits a $50 gift into its parts: $31 for field programmes, $9 for community grants, $4 for monitoring, $3.50 for fundraising and $2.50 for the office.

It promises to publish the real figures next to that plan each year, including anything that went wrong. A donor who sees the split before giving has one less reason to hesitate.

Call a target a target

A young organisation has plans before it has results, and that is fine as long as the website says so. Mizizi lists its goals for 2027, from native seedlings raised in village nurseries to hectares of mangrove replanted in the Rufiji Delta, with one plain line underneath: these are targets, and progress against each will be published every year.

Donors and grant officers read carefully, and a plan dressed up as an achievement is an easy way to lose them.

Make each gift concrete

The donation chooser on Mizizi offers monthly or one-off gifts in four set amounts, plus a box for any other figure. Each amount says what it pays for; the default monthly gift helps pay a nursery keeper through the dry season.

The page also answers the questions that stop people at the last step:

• cancelling a monthly gift takes one email
• donors get a short field note from their chosen site every quarter
• payment works by card, bank transfer or mobile money
• restricted gifts stay with the programme the donor picks

Offer more than one way in

Not every supporter has money to give. Mizizi's "Get involved" section offers field placements for volunteers, partnerships for companies that want to fund a named site, a kit for anyone running their own fundraiser and, for people not ready to commit, a monthly newsletter. Every option except the newsletter comes with a person to talk to.

For visitor centres and schools, put times and prices first

A family planning a Saturday out wants show times and prices without hunting for them. Anga Dome puts the next show in the dome in the hero, with its time, length, audience, language and a Book button. A strip below shows today's opening hours, the number of dome shows, the starting ticket price and the Friday telescope nights.

The ticket table lists separate prices for citizens and residents and for visitors, in Kenyan shillings. The booking panel lets a visitor pick a day and a show, add tickets for each kind of visitor and see the total before sending.

Make the group booking easy for the teacher

A teacher has to get a trip approved before anyone books it, and that needs a number. Anga's school section prices each programme per pupil, then lets the teacher enter a class size and see the total, with one teacher free for every ten pupils. The steps are written out, from sending the class list a week ahead to arriving by 09:15 at the bus drop-off.

Access details sit nearby, including step-free routes, relaxed sessions with softer sound, a hearing loop and parking with bus bays.

What an NGO or school website costs

A ticket calculator, a school-trip estimate, a donation chooser or a site in two languages (Anga runs its shows in English and Kiswahili) makes this a Big website: $350, paid once when the work is done, with no deposit and no page limit. An organisation that mainly needs to explain its work and take enquiries can start with a Small website at $300. Both go live two weeks after your content arrives, and each has a dedicated manager who looks after it.

In a $350 build, ticket and school-trip forms send requests your team confirms. Taking card or mobile money payments online, for tickets or donations, is quoted separately. See our web design page for the full scope.

Choose the concept in our gallery closest to your organisation, then book a call or send us a WhatsApp message. We will tell you plainly what your site needs.