A small nonprofit's website has two jobs: tell the story, and take the gift

The website has to move a reader, and then make giving easy

International Social Service USA works with families separated by an international border. In its own words: "ISS-USA mobilizes a domestic and international network of social work, legal, and other professionals to connect children, adults and families separated by borders with the services and support they need."

It is a small organization doing specialized work, and it depends on people who choose to support it. For the staff member who looks after the website, that means the site has two jobs at once. It has to explain work that most people have never heard of, clearly enough that a reader cares. Then it has to let that reader give, right then, without a moment of doubt about where their money is going.

A gift happens in the minute someone is moved. If the giving page is confusing, or looks like it belongs to a different organization, that minute passes.

Two jobs that usually end up on two different websites

Many nonprofits solve this with two systems. The website tells the story, and a separate fundraising service takes the gift. The donor clicks Donate and lands somewhere with another design and another address. Most carry on. Some stop.

ISS-USA wanted the story and the gift in one place. The staff also wanted to run the site themselves. Case stories, program pages, and news change often, and a small team cannot wait on a developer for each one.

There was a practical question too. The site was being built through K Global, the communications agency ISS-USA worked with, and agencies move from project to project. A website that takes money needs someone looking after it long after launch day, and the staff needed to know who that would be.

One site for the story and the gift, built so staff can run it

We built the site as the agency's development team. They led the project, and we did the build. The nonprofit got one website, and everything below lives on it.

Giving happens on ISS-USA's own pages. A donor picks an amount, can make the gift monthly, and can choose to cover the processing fee so more of the gift reaches the work. The form carries the organization's own look from the first click to the receipt, and gifts go to ISS-USA's own Stripe account.

Staff build pages from sections. Story pages, program pages, and event pages are assembled from a set of ready-made sections that staff arrange and fill in. A new case story goes up the day it is ready.

Sign-ups reach the email list on their own. When a supporter fills in a form on the site, they are added to the organization's email list automatically, so nobody retypes names from one system into another.

We stayed. After launch, ISS-USA came to us directly for hosting, updates, and support. The people who built the site are the people who answer when staff have a question about it.

Years later, they still ask us first

In 2026, International Social Service marks its centennial, with a symposium and an evening reception. The staff asked us a fair question: should registration be built into the website, or handled by an outside ticketing service? We laid out the options plainly, including the ones that involved less work for us. They chose to keep it on their own site.

So registration for the centennial runs on the same website, and payments go to the same account as donations. Staff reviewed the page on a hidden address until they were happy with it, and it went live that summer. When the evening venue changed its name a few weeks later, staff updated the page copy themselves, and we handled the form.

That is how the relationship works now. Staff run their site day to day. When something new comes up, it starts as a conversation about what would serve the organization, and the website is ready for what they decide.