Web Hosting for Nonprofits and Charities

Written by Web Hosting Expert

Reviewed by Verpex Blog Editor

Updated October 7, 2022
Web Hosting for Nonprofits and Charities

For a nonprofit or charity, the website is typically at the forefront of public engagement. This is where the organization’s mission, programs and events, staff profiles and news all come together in one place.

If you’re hoping to get your message out to the masses and raise awareness for a cause, you need to have a super-fast site that can handle thousands of visits from people all over the world.

If you manage a nonprofit or charity organization and you need hosting for your website, you’re surely wondering whether or not you can get free web hosting. We’ll provide all the necessary information when it comes to getting a good web hosting provider for your nonprofit!

Paid vs. Free Web Hosting for Nonprofits


When it comes to nonprofits, the first question that pops into people’s heads is whether paid or free web hosting is the better choice.

Some providers do offer free hosting; however, you have to keep in mind that it has certain limitations.

One of the most common limitations is ads. In order to provide hosting, companies need to spend money on the technology and space required. Advertisers are one of the most important segments of online businesses, but they also cause one of their biggest headaches: ad blocking and ad filtering. If you're running a business, you might want to provide your customers with an opportunity to disable ads — or at least figure out how to make them work for both sides.

Some other common limitations of free web hosting are:

While these free hosting services do help with the initial costs of getting a site up and running, there are some limitations that come with them.

  • Common outages
  • Lack of customer support
  • Limited bandwidth
  • Limited pages
  • Paid upgrades that are required for many features

We would suggest a package with an affordable price as a preferable option between free and paid hosting.

Paid web hosting packages provide an array of benefits that your business can't afford to miss out on. With paid hosting, you'll get the freedom to customize your site and its structure without breaking a bank. Your business will be more in control of increasing sales, so you'll have the ability to track how each user interacts with your web pages.

What We Look for in the Best Web Hosting Services for Nonprofits


Web Hosting Services for Nonprofits

Choosing the right hosting company is one of the first, and most important, decisions you'll make. It will ultimately determine how effectively your site performs under periods of heavy traffic and whether or not it can grow with your business.

Variety of plans

Variety of plans

You’re surely hoping that in the following years, the number of visitors to your website will grow. This is why you need to look for a provider that will match your future plans as well.

Strong reputation

Strong reputation

Are there any reviews from tech publications about them? Have they earned any awards from reputable organizations? What do their actual customers say about their products?

The right price

The right price

Expensive web hosting shouldn't be anyone's first consideration when shopping around. Make sure to find out if a provider builds its own servers or resells space from another provider before you commit.

Security options

Security options

A secure web hosting provider is a priority. Security is critically important for charity organizations making sure that the personal and financial data of users is safe.

Types of Hosting for Nonprofits


Shared Hosting

One of the most common choices for nonprofits is shared hosting plans. With this type of plan, multiple users share a single server. The advantage that this type of hosting has is that it is the most affordable since the resources are shared.

Shared hosting offers a cost-effective solution for entrepreneurs who need an easy way to launch their websites. With each shared hosting account, you receive a certain amount of disk space and bandwidth, as well as email accounts, which are essential for all online businesses.

Cloud Hosting

The advantage of cloud web hosting is that you can scale the resources of your server as needed. Thanks to the built-in redundancy of the system, data loss and downtime are rarely an issue. You can choose between managed and unmanaged cloud servers.

WordPress Hosting

WordPress hosting plans are optimized to provide better performance of your site on WordPress and make your life and management of the site much simpler and easier. Just as with Cloud hosting, with WordPress hosting, you can also choose between unmanaged and managed WordPress hosting plans.

Email Hosting for Nonprofits


Email hosting is an important part of the email infrastructure. It's what your business will use to send emails to people — and receive their replies. This means that you need a reliable provider to maintain contact with people who are interested in your products and services.

Not all web hosting providers offer email hosting; however, at Verpex, we do offer it as a part of any hosting plan.

Web Hosting Features for Nonprofit Website


SSL certificate

In order to keep your sites secure, some hosting providers will provide you with an SSL to keep your website secure. At Verpex, we do provide an SSL certificate for your site.

Domain registration

Even though it isn’t always the case, some hosting companies will also register your domain name. At Verpex, we offer a free domain with our plans.

Support and troubleshooting

Your web hosting provider should be your first point of contact in case your website goes down, or you’re facing any issues.

FTP access

FTP access will allow you to upload files to your website from a computer.

Web Hosting Features You Can Skip


Web Hosting Features You Can Skip for Nonprofits website

When you're launching a new project for the first time, or are in the midst of iterative redesigns, it's hard to know what features to include.For long-term success, it’s great to choose only the features you need and to focus your budget where it will have the greatest impact.

  • Unnecessary extras - Some hosting companies provide a long list of features, extras, or plugins that you would not really need, just so they can justify the price.
  • Refund policy - You might want to check in details the return policy that the hosting provider offers. Although it may seem like they provide this servce, there are a lot of small print exceptions that you need to be aware of. Verpex offer a 100% money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied with our service for any reason, just contact our team within the first 30 days and we'll refund your purchase.

Summary


Giving back to the community is incredibly rewarding. No matter what you do in life, there's always a way to give back, and there's always a way to improve your organization.

Nonprofit organizations have a lot of pressure to succeed online — just think about how much money can be made through sponsorship and donations! Thankfully, there are plenty of great hosting services available for small nonprofits.

Verpex offers a fantastic range of services and extras. It’s also one of the few top-rated hosting providers for nonprofits.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a website need hosting?

Yes. In order for a site to be accessed by outside users, it needs to have website hosting.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is the name of your website. A domain name is a word or a phrase that people enter in their browsers in order to be taken to a certain website on the Internet.

How will I know how many people visited my site?

A number of different third-party resources allow you to see how many people visited your site.

What is SSL security?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets layer, and it is a protocol that is frequently used to communicate information online in a secure way.

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