As Juneteenth and Pride Month prompt many nonprofits to reflect on equity, it's a good time to remember that equity doesn’t stop at your programs, policies, staffing, or who’s in the room. Your website is part of that equation too. It’s often the first—and sometimes only—place where the public interacts with your organization. And for many people, that interaction shapes whether they feel welcome, respected, and able to access what you offer.
An equitable website isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s a core part of serving your mission and your community—and not just in June, but all year long.
Also read: 6 steps to elevate brainstorming with opportunity mapping
What makes a website equitable?
1. It reflects your full community
The people who visit your site should see themselves represented — not just visually, but culturally and contextually. That starts with the language you use and the photos you choose, and extends to how you frame your services.
- Honor different lived experiences – Make sure your instructions and examples respect diverse family structures, income levels, gender identities, and life situations.
- Show real diversity – Use images that reflect the racial, cultural, and generational diversity of the people in your community — not as tokenism, but as an honest reflection of those you serve and a welcome to those you’d like to include. Make sure you show diversity in people in different roles — not just in the people you’re serving.
- Don’t focus on people suffering, in sadness or poverty. These images are dehumanizing. Instead, show people so that it’s easy to imagine them with strengths, relationships, and lives beyond the challenges they may face.
- Avoid assumptions – Think through how your webpages will be perceived by people of different marital statuses, income levels, cultural backgrounds, gender identities, or family structures, to make them inclusive to as wide a range of people as possible.
Representation helps build trust. It shows your organization sees the full humanity of your audience—and values it.
2. It prioritizes accessibility
An equitable website works for everyone, regardless of ability, device, or sensory needs.
- Meet technical accessibility standards – Ensure your site is navigable by screen readers, works without a mouse, has readable contrast, and follows WCAG guidelines for contrast, alt text, labels, and keyboard access.
- Support neurodiverse users – Go beyond minimum standards by reducing visual clutter, keeping layouts predictable and easily scannable, offering a dark mode or other display options, and avoiding moving images on a page. These changes help users focus and feel more in control.
Accessibility is not an add-on; it’s fundamental. If your website isn’t working for everyone, it isn’t truly working.
3. It works on visitors’ devices
Not everyone accesses your website on a giant desktop screen — and equity means designing with that reality in mind. Your site should:
- Work well on mobile – Many people, including lower-income users and people of color, rely on phones as their primary (or only) way to get online. Make a habit of using your own mobile site!
- Load on slow connections – Reduce large images, unnecessary animations, and bandwidth-heavy features so your site stays usable for people with limited data or spotty internet access.
- Run on older devices – Ensure compatibility with outdated phones, older browsers, and public computers like those in libraries, which may have slower speeds or outdated software.
Designing for these constraints is about meeting people where they are. If your site only works in perfect conditions, it doesn’t work equitably.
4. It uses inclusive language and forms
Small choices in language and form design can have a big role in building an equitable website. They signal whether people are respected or erased.
- Avoid insider language – Steer clear of jargon, acronyms, or references that assume a white, middle-class, liberal, English-speaking default.
- Respect gender diversity – Use gender-neutral language (like “they” instead of “he” or “he/she”) and include pronouns and nonbinary options on forms.
- Support diverse names – Make sure form fields accept names with accents, hyphens, and multiple parts to accommodate cultural and linguistic differences.
Inclusive design shows people they belong — and that your organization is thinking beyond default settings.
5. It provides language access, if relevant
If your site provides essential services — such as housing assistance, legal aid, healthcare, or crisis support — your website must be readable for the people who rely on it.
- Translate key content – Offer translated materials for the most common languages in your community (even if just the most critical content).
- Make translation options easy to find – Place language choices in obvious, prominent places — not hidden in a footer or dropdown.
For many sites, language access is just as important as accessibility for people with disabilities.
6. It prioritizes clarity and usability for all
Equity includes making your site easy to use for everyone, including those under stress, with limited literacy, or unfamiliar with your systems. Good design and clear writing are powerful tools for inclusion.
- Use plain language – Write at a 6th–8th grade reading level to ensure broad understanding.
- Design for readability – Break up text with clear headings, short paragraphs, and generous white space.
- Organize content by user needs – Structure your site around what visitors are trying to do, not your internal departments.
- Be transparent and actionable – Make it clear what someone can do, how to do it, and what to expect. Typically, visitors care much more about understanding what they can do next rather than the detailed context (for instance, legal, legislative, or scientific details).
Clarity is an act of respect. It honors people’s time, energy, and attention and helps your site serve its purpose.
7. It’s built with (not just for) communities
Equity isn’t just about what’s on the site—it’s also about how the site is built. An equitable website is shaped with the input of the people it serves.
- Involve your community early – Talk to potential visitors before you design to understand their needs, challenges, and expectations. Listening at the start helps you build something that actually works for them.
- Center lived experience in decisions – Use surveys, interviews, and user testing to gather real feedback, and prioritize input from those directly impacted by the issues your organization addresses.
A site shaped with community input helps ensure it meets real needs, making it more relevant, and more trustworthy.
This article was written by a cis, heterosexual white woman with a consulting practice built in part on generational privilege. What business do I have talking about equity? It’s everybody’s business. It’s especially the job of white people to learn, listen, and then educate other white people about how they can move in an anti-racist and more equitable direction. Read my full equity statement.
Laura S. Quinn
she/her
Laura S. Quinn Consulting
Laura S. Quinn is a Nonprofit Website Coach who supports nonprofit staff with weekly or bi-weekly calls to provide best practices and help them avoid risk as they work on website projects, and also provides Website Strategy consulting. She's been a proud member of the NTEN community for more than 20 years. As the founder of Idealware, she spent 10 years as its Executive Director. In that position and in her independent consulting since, she has worked with dozens of small to large organizations, including clients like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the ASPCA, Adeso, Ohio Legal Help, and the Legal Services Corporation. She also publishes the Nonprofit Website Insider (free!), a twice-monthly newsletter with curated articles for website staff.
