Cheap website design for a Non-Profit/NGO

August 28, 2007 10:03 AM

Could someone recommend options for very cheap website design for a Non-Profit/NGO?

Some people are trying to set up an association (Nami India) along the lines of NAMI USA , to offer information and support and to act as an advocacy group for people with Mental Illness in India.

They would like to have a pretty simple website with features like a blog, a discussion forum and perhaps a chat facility.

The entire operation is being funded personally at the moment and hence resources are running quite low.

Does anyone have any experience employing the services of someone who could do this kind of a job very cheaply?

Any freelance designers looking to add more experience to their portfoilo for free?!

Thanks

posted by sk381 to computers & internet (6 comments total)

http://www.taprootfoundation.org/

free! volunteer grants for non-profits
posted by beckish at 11:54 AM on August 28, 2007

I'm the web designer *cough*yeah right! ha ha! wild laughter!*cough* at the nonprofit where I work. I have no real skills, just a copy of Dreamweaver and a willingness to experiment. That's been my experience with all the nonprofits where I've ever worked, actually - the person on the staff who is the least afraid of computers ends up working on the website. This holds true even for those nonprofits that bit the bullet and got a real web designer to do the original site: it gets updated by people like me.

My suggestion, therefore, is to try to find someone involved in the original idea, one of the founding board people, who knows a little bit about web design and get them to build you something. Ask around. Ask everyone involved if they know anyone. That's how we got our original website. I would say though that you should start small and then grow, remembering that you're going to need not just an original website but also someone to maintain and update it.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:16 PM on August 28, 2007

Don't find someone who knows a little bit about web design and let them build you something. Find someone who knows a little about web development and get a host that lets you install Drupal or Plone or some other open source CMS. Buy a book on how to administer it. Install themes and modules to your liking.
posted by miniape at 1:55 PM on August 28, 2007

Drop me an e-mail, I might be interested.
posted by charmston at 2:53 PM on August 28, 2007

Design-wise, Open-source web design is free and there are some decent templates on there. Not fantastic, but feel the price.

Application-wise, maybe check out Dreamhost, they have free non-profit hosting, but the legal requirements may not be plausible for you. Almost any webhost will have "one-click installs" for many common applications (blogs, forums, etc).

If you're really hurting for someone to coordinate all this, drop me a line, I might be able to help with the technical side. You wouldn't want me designing anything though, trust me.
posted by Skorgu at 6:09 PM on August 28, 2007

vesana.com also offers free hosting for non-profits. And I second oswd.org for templates.
posted by DakotaPaul at 3:32 AM on August 30, 2007