Choosing a web design agency for your NGO is an important decision.
Your website may be the first place a potential donor learns about your organization, the place a development partner researches your work, or the resource beneficiaries use to find information about your programmes.
That means choosing an agency based purely on how attractive its portfolio looks can be a mistake.
The right web design agency should understand your organization’s mission, your audiences, your content, your technical requirements and the realities of operating in Kenya and across Africa.
It should be able to build more than a beautiful website. It should create a digital platform that helps your organization communicate, build credibility, reach its audiences and achieve its objectives.
So, what should you look for when choosing a web design agency for your NGO in Kenya?
Here are the most important factors to consider.
The first question to ask is:
Has this agency built websites for organizations like ours?
Building an NGO website can involve very different challenges from building a website for a restaurant, real estate company or small business.
An NGO website may need to communicate:
Some organizations may also need sophisticated resource libraries, searchable databases, country pages, multilingual content or integrations with other systems.
An agency with experience in the development sector is more likely to understand these requirements.
Don’t just ask an agency to show you its “best websites.”
Ask:
“Can you show us websites you’ve built for NGOs, development organizations, government institutions or other mission-driven organizations?”
Then ask what the agency actually contributed.
Did it only design the visual interface?
Or did it handle:
Those distinctions matter.
Your website shouldn’t simply make your organization look professional.
It should help people understand what you do and why it matters.
A good agency should take the time to understand:
During the discovery process, the agency should be asking questions about your organization rather than immediately showing you website templates.
This is a good sign:
“Who are the most important audiences for this website, and what do you want each of them to do?”
This is a less useful starting point:
“Which homepage template do you like?”
The first question is about solving a problem.
The second is about decorating a website.
UX—user experience—is one of the most important factors to consider when selecting a web design agency.
A website can look excellent and still be frustrating to use.
Imagine an NGO with hundreds of reports and publications.
If visitors can’t find the report they’re looking for, the website has failed regardless of how attractive the homepage is.
A good agency should think about:
Ask the agency:
“How do you determine what the website’s structure and navigation should be?”
If the answer is essentially “we’ll make it look good,” keep looking.
A strong UX process should involve research, analysis and testing before the final interface is built.
For example, Zedafrica’s process includes user research, competitor research, market research and UX audits before moving into UX/UI design and development.
This deserves special attention for NGOs.
Many NGOs have accumulated years of:
Over time, the website can become a digital filing cabinet rather than a useful information resource.
The agency you choose should be able to explain how it will organize this information.
Ask:
This is particularly important for research and knowledge-focused organizations.
For example, Zedafrica’s redesign of the Maarifa Centre addressed poor information architecture, difficult resource discovery and difficult content management. The resulting platform included improved information architecture and custom faceted search.
That is the kind of experience worth looking for if your NGO has a large body of knowledge or publications.
A website agency may be excellent at design and development but still struggle with the reality of NGO content.
Ask:
Who will be responsible for content?
This includes:
If your existing website has hundreds of pages and documents, content migration can become a significant part of the project.
Ask the agency:
“How will you handle our existing content?”
You should receive a concrete answer rather than:
“We’ll transfer everything to the new website.”
A good agency should first determine what should be migrated, what should be rewritten, what should be archived and how the new content structure should work.
Your NGO shouldn’t have to contact a developer every time someone wants to publish a news article.
Your communications or programme team should ideally be able to manage ordinary website content themselves.
Ask the agency:
Popular CMS options include WordPress, Drupal and other open-source or proprietary platforms.
The important thing isn’t which platform is currently fashionable.
The important question is:
Does the platform fit your organization’s requirements?
For example, Zedafrica has worked with both WordPress and Drupal depending on the needs of the project. The HoRN Learning Hub was built on WordPress, while the Maarifa Centre was rebuilt on Drupal because of its content management, indexing and information architecture requirements.
That is a useful principle:
Choose the technology based on the problem, not the other way around.
A significant proportion of your website visitors may access your website using smartphones.
Your agency should therefore treat mobile design as a core requirement—not as a smaller version of the desktop website.
Ask to see:
Don’t simply ask:
“Is the website responsive?”
Almost every agency will say yes.
Instead ask:
“How do you approach mobile UX and performance?”
That question will tell you much more.
Zedafrica’s work on the HoRN Learning Hub, for example, was explicitly designed as a mobile-first solution while also taking into account poor internet access in some Horn of Africa countries.
A beautiful website that takes ten seconds to load isn’t a successful website.
Performance matters for:
Ask your prospective agency how it will handle:
You can also ask whether performance testing is part of the development process.
A professional agency should have a clear answer.
Zedafrica’s published development process, for example, includes performance optimization as part of deployment and quality assurance.
SEO shouldn’t be something that gets added to your website six months after launch.
Your web design agency should understand how website architecture affects search visibility.
Ask whether the project includes:
This becomes particularly important if your current website already receives organic traffic.
A website redesign can unintentionally destroy search rankings if URLs change without proper redirects or valuable pages disappear.
An NGO website should be accessible to as many people as reasonably possible.
Your agency should understand accessibility requirements such as:
Ask the agency:
“What accessibility standard will you design and test against?”
For many organizations, WCAG is a useful framework for defining accessibility requirements.
Don’t accept “the website will be accessible” as the complete answer.
Ask how accessibility will actually be tested.
This is particularly important if your NGO operates across Kenya or Africa.
A website designed for users with fast fibre internet in London or New York may perform very differently for someone accessing it from a lower-bandwidth mobile connection.
Your agency should understand considerations such as:
Ask:
“How will you ensure the website performs well for users with slower connections?”
This is one area where local experience can be valuable.
The HoRN Learning Hub project is a good example: one of the identified challenges was poor internet penetration and access in some countries, and the resulting platform was designed as a mobile-first resource hub.
NGOs are not immune to cyberattacks.
Your website may contain:
Ask your agency about:
If your website will handle sensitive personal information, discuss data protection requirements before development begins.
A technically excellent agency can still deliver a frustrating project if communication and project management are poor.
Ask:
You should know exactly what happens after signing the contract.
A good project shouldn’t feel like:
“We sent the agency our requirements three months ago and haven’t heard anything.”
Look for an agency with a defined process and clear communication channels.
Ask to meet the people who will actually be responsible for the work.
Depending on the project, this could include:
Some agencies present an impressive senior team during the sales process and then hand the project to people you’ve never met.
Ask:
“Who will be working on our project day to day?”
This is particularly important for larger NGO website projects.
Don’t just look at whether you like the colours and typography.
Ask yourself:
Can you immediately understand what the organization does?
Can you find important information without thinking too hard?
Try it on your phone.
If the organization publishes reports, try finding one.
Does it communicate the seriousness and professionalism of the organization?
A children’s charity, research institute and international development organization shouldn’t necessarily have identical visual identities.
The portfolio should demonstrate problem-solving ability, not just visual creativity.
Before making a significant investment, ask to speak with previous clients.
Ideally, ask for references from organizations similar to yours.
Questions you can ask include:
The final question is particularly useful:
“Would you hire them again?”
A hesitation can tell you more than a five-star testimonial.
Don’t compare agencies using only their total price.
Compare what each proposal actually includes.
For example:
| Item | Agency A | Agency B |
|---|---|---|
| UX research | ✓ | — |
| UI design | ✓ | ✓ |
| CMS development | ✓ | ✓ |
| Content migration | ✓ | Extra |
| SEO setup | ✓ | — |
| Training | ✓ | Extra |
| Hosting | Included | Extra |
| Maintenance | 12 months | 3 months |
| Analytics setup | ✓ | ✓ |
A KES 500,000 proposal isn’t necessarily cheaper than a KES 800,000 proposal if the cheaper proposal leaves important components out.
Always compare scope, deliverables and long-term costs.
Price matters, particularly for NGOs working with limited budgets.
But an unusually cheap quote deserves careful examination.
Ask what has been excluded.
Perhaps there is:
There is nothing inherently wrong with a low-cost website if it meets your requirements.
The problem is when the price is low because important parts of the project have simply been left out.
This is one of the most important questions to ask before signing a contract.
Your organization should understand who owns:
Ask:
“If we decide to move to another agency in three years, can we take the website with us?”
The answer should be clear in the contract.
You don’t want your organization to become dependent on an agency simply because it controls your domain, hosting or website source code.
The website launch isn’t the end of the project.
It is the beginning of the website’s operational life.
Ask your agency about:
Also ask:
“What happens when our maintenance agreement ends?”
You should know what options your organization has.
This may be the most important consideration of all.
Your website will evolve.
Your organization may:
You therefore want an agency that can understand where your digital presence is going—not simply deliver a website and disappear.
The best relationship is often closer to a digital technology partner than a traditional supplier.
If you’re currently evaluating agencies, ask each one the same questions.
If an agency cannot give you clear answers to these questions, think carefully before hiring them.
Before signing a contract, make sure your preferred agency has:
Hiring a Kenyan web design agency doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get a better website.
But local experience can provide useful context.
An agency working regularly with Kenyan and African organizations may already understand:
The key isn’t simply “Are you based in Kenya?”
The better question is:
“Do you understand the people who will use our website?”
At Zedafrica, we approach website projects as digital experience and technology projects, rather than simply designing pages.
Our process starts with strategy and research before moving into UX, UI design, development and quality assurance.
We’ve worked with organizations operating in government, development and non-profit environments.
Our work includes the HoRN Learning Hub for USAID, a resource-sharing platform designed to improve collaboration and access to knowledge across the Horn of Africa. The project involved user research, UX design, CMS development, content migration, performance optimization, testing and training.
We also redesigned the Maarifa Centre for the Council of Governors and USAID, transforming a difficult-to-navigate knowledge repository into a platform with improved information architecture, resource discovery, content management and faceted search.
Our broader portfolio includes digital products and platforms for organizations such as the Rwanda Development Board and GIZ, alongside our work in web design, UI/UX research and web development.
Most importantly, we don’t believe every organization needs the same website.
The right solution depends on your audiences, content, goals and technical requirements.
Choosing a web design agency for your NGO is about much more than finding someone who can make a beautiful homepage.
You are choosing a partner that will influence how your organization communicates with donors, partners, beneficiaries, researchers, government institutions and the public.
Look for an agency that can demonstrate:
Strategy.
UX expertise.
Strong design.
Technical competence.
SEO and performance knowledge.
Accessibility awareness.
Relevant experience.
Clear communication.
Long-term support.
And perhaps most importantly, look for an agency that takes the time to understand why your organization exists and what you need the website to accomplish.
A good NGO website should not simply tell people what your organization does.
It should make it easier for the right people to find you, understand your work, engage with your content and take action.
If your NGO in Kenya is planning a new website or redesign, Zedafrica can help you evaluate the requirements, develop the right digital strategy and build the platform around the needs of your users.
