Website Design in Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Web Design Scoped Line by Line for Nonprofits and Foundations

Updated November 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

In 1914, a Cleveland banker set up what the Cleveland Foundation calls the world’s first community foundation, and local nonprofits still answer to readers who ask where the money went. This page treats website design in Cleveland, Ohio as a scope a funder can read line by line: program pages, the donation form, receipts, the Form 990, Ohio charity wording, sponsor logos and upkeep, each with a published fee range. It is written for executive directors, development leads and foundation staff. Progression is based in New York and takes on Cleveland projects remotely, and on-site sessions are available when you ask.

A 1914 trust and the reader it left behind

The Cleveland Foundation describes itself as the world’s first community foundation and one of the largest today. It says it was established in 1914 by Frederick Harris Goff, a lawyer and banker at the Cleveland Trust Company, and that a gift to it is invested to grow over time and meet the changing needs of the community across generations. The foundation says it serves Cuyahoga, Geauga and Lake counties. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, published by Case Western Reserve University, dates its founding to January 2, 1914.

Whatever one thinks of the history, it left Northeast Ohio with a habit. Donors, board members and foundation staff who look at a nonprofit’s website tend to ask what a gift did and where it went. A site that answers in the order those readers ask is easier to defend in a board meeting. We have read no funder’s rule about websites, so nothing on this page says any foundation requires this format or pays for a website. If you want to know what a funder wants to see, ask your program officer.

Who reads a Cleveland nonprofit’s site first?

Usually not the person who commissioned it. A donor reads the donate page, a program officer reads the program pages, a new board member reads the transparency page, and a resident looks for the service they came for. The scope below is arranged so that each of them has a line of their own.

Website design in Cleveland, Ohio as a scope a funder can read

Most quotes for Cleveland website design arrive as one number and a list of page counts. A funder reading that number cannot tell what any dollar bought. The format here breaks the quote into seven lines, and each line carries four fields, shown on the cards: what we build, who reads it, what it rests on and what it costs. Cleveland web design priced this way can go into a grant budget without a paragraph of explanation. When website design in Cleveland, OH is paid for from a grant budget, the scope has to show its arithmetic.

Our page on nonprofit website design covers the general build for charities, from page structure to platforms. This page is the Ohio scope document: the same work, laid out line by line, with the Cleveland and Ohio material the general page leaves out.

1. Program pages that match the funded work.
2. A donation form every donor can finish.
3. The receipt the form has to send.
4. A transparency page for the Form 990.
5. Ohio charity wording on the donate page.
6. Sponsor logos and shop-for-a-cause pages.
7. Neighborhood pages for community development corporations.

How should you read the cost cells?

Where a published US band exists, the cost cell shows it, from the typical low to the published high, and labels it as a market figure. Where no band covers the line, the cell says the line is quoted after a written scope. None of these figures is a Cleveland price. The bands are collected again, with their publishers, in the table near the end.

Scope line 1: program pages that match the funded work

A funder reads a program page to find out what the money did. Give each funded program its own page, with the plain outcome, the dates, who is served and where, and the people who run it. Show a number only where the organization has it; an invented statistic is worse than none.

Under R.C. 1716.04(A)(4), the annual financial report a registered charity files with the Ohio Attorney General includes a statement of functional expenses that sorts costs into program, management and general, and fund-raising. A site that gives each program its own page lets a reader see which work sits under the first heading. For search, program pages are also the pages people find first; see our nonprofit SEO guide.

• One page per funded program, with the name a funder would recognize.
• A short statement of who is served and in which neighborhoods, only if that is true.
• Dates, so that a reader can tell a current program from a retired one.
• A contact for the program and a way to give to it.
• Outcome language the organization can back up from its own records.

What belongs on a program page and what does not?

The page should say what the program does, for whom, since when and with whose help. Leave out claims that nobody on staff could document, and leave out a funder’s name unless the funder has agreed in writing; line 6 explains why.

Scope line 2: a donation form every donor can finish

A donor who gives up halfway through a form is a donor the program pages already won and the form lost. The W3C’s WCAG 2.2 has three success criteria that map onto the moments donors most often stall, and the cards put them in donor terms.

In donor terms, the first criterion says a button on a phone is big enough to tap without hitting its neighbor. The second says a donor should not have to type the same address twice in one giving process. The third says a recurring donor who logs in to change a card should not face a password or a puzzle with no alternative. Each criterion has exceptions that the W3C text lists, and we read these three only. We make no claim about what any law requires of your form; ask counsel. For the wider accessibility work, see ADA compliant website design.

What does an accessibility review of a donate form check?

It walks the form with a keyboard, with a screen reader and on a phone, then reports every place a donor could get stuck. The scope should list the fixes as lines of their own, so a funder can see what the review changed.

Scope line 3: the receipt the form has to send

Every online gift creates a document. The IRS says the written acknowledgment needed to back a donor’s deduction for a gift of $250 or more must contain the items on the cards. That makes the confirmation email part of the website scope and not an afterthought.

The IRS page on written acknowledgments also names one more item, a statement that goods or services consisted entirely of intangible religious benefits, if that was the case. The build job is a confirmation email template that carries these fields and fills them from the form. Your accountant decides the wording; we build what they approve.

Why does a gala ticket form differ from a plain donate form?

A gala ticket is a payment made partly as a gift and partly for something in return. The IRS page on quid pro quo contributions says a payment of more than $75 that is partly a contribution and partly for goods or services needs a written disclosure. Its own example is a $100 gift that comes with a concert ticket valued at $40: the contribution part is $60, and because the payment is more than $75 the charity must give the donor a statement. The statement tells the donor that the deductible amount is limited to the excess over the value of what was provided, and gives a good faith estimate of that value. For a gala, the form has to show the estimate and the receipt has to repeat it. Ask your accountant how to word it.

Scope line 4: a transparency page for the Form 990

A transparency page is where a new board member, a funder or a skeptical donor goes to check the numbers. Put the latest returns there, the audited financial statements if the organization has them, and a link to the state’s charity listings. The IRS says an exempt organization must make its annual returns available for public inspection, and that returns must be available for a three-year period beginning with the due date or the date filed, whichever is later, as stated on its page on documents subject to public disclosure.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Charitable Ohio site lists tools to search for charities registered with the office and to view charity annual report filings. A link from your transparency page lets a funder check the state record without asking you for it. We do not say that posting a return on your website satisfies any duty, and what may be left out of a posted copy is a question for counsel.

• The most recent annual return and the two before it, if your counsel agrees they should be posted.
• Audited financial statements, if any.
• A plain-language summary of where the money goes, using the same headings as the return.
• A link to the Ohio Attorney General’s charity search and annual report filings.
• The date each document was last updated.

Who updates the page when a new return is filed?

Name one person. A transparency page that is two years out of date does more harm than no page. The scope should say who uploads the document, who approves it and how the date on the page changes.

Scope line 5: Ohio charity wording on the donate page

Ohio regulates charitable solicitation in R.C. Chapter 1716. Section 1716.02 says every charitable organization, except those exempted under section 1716.03, that intends to solicit contributions in this state by any means must file a registration statement with the attorney general before it does so and annually afterward. Section 1716.01 defines to solicit as requesting money or property on the representation that it will be used for a charitable purpose, and lists methods that include any oral or written request and “distributing, circulating, posting, or publishing any handbill, written advertisement, or other publication that directly or by implication seeks to obtain any contribution.” The list we read does not name websites, so we do not say that a website alone triggers registration. Ask counsel.

What a web designer can do is small. Put one reviewed sentence about registration where donors can see it, and make sure it does not overreach. Section 1716.14(A)(7) bars using or exploiting the fact of registration in such a manner as to lead anyone to believe it constitutes an endorsement or approval by the state. So a line such as “registered with the state” should be written by counsel and read for what it implies. We are not giving legal advice.

Listed exemptions, in the statute’s words

Section 1716.03 lists organizations not required to file a registration statement. The list includes religious agencies and organizations; a charitable organization that has been in continuous existence in the state for at least two years, holds a currently effective IRS determination letter as a 501(c)(3), has registered with the attorney general as a charitable trust under section 109.26 and has filed its annual report under section 109.31; certain educational institutions and booster clubs when solicitation is confined as the section says; and a charitable organization whose gross revenue, excluding listed grants and awards, did not exceed $25,000 in its preceding fiscal year if it compensates no one primarily to solicit. We list these as the statute lists them. Whether your organization fits any of them is for counsel.

When a designer or copywriter is close to the fundraising

Section 1716.01(H) defines fund-raising counsel as a person who, for compensation, plans, manages, advises, consults or prepares material for or with respect to the solicitation in Ohio of contributions for a charitable organization, but does not solicit. The definition lists exclusions, among them an attorney, investment counselor or banker advising a client in that profession. Section 1716.04(A)(3) says the annual financial report names the fund-raising counsel a charity used, with the amounts paid. If a vendor writes appeals as well as building pages, take that question to counsel before signing. We state no conclusion about any vendor, including Progression.

Scope line 6: sponsor logos and shop-for-a-cause pages

A logo wall looks harmless and can be the riskiest part of a donate page. Section 1716.14(A)(6) bars misleading anyone, by any representation, to think another person sponsors, endorses or approves a solicitation when that person has not consented in writing to the representation or to the use of its name. Section 1716.14(A)(3) bars using an emblem or device belonging to or associated with a charitable organization without first being authorized in writing by that organization.

In scope terms, every logo gets a consent column. The sample below uses invented names and shows the columns a scope can carry; it is an illustration and not a template that guarantees anything.

What about a local shop that says sales benefit you?

Section 1716.01(C) defines a charitable sales promotion as advertising or a sale by a person who represents that buying its goods or services will benefit, in whole or in part, a charitable organization or purpose, and section 1716.01(E) defines a commercial co-venturer as a for-profit business that conducts one. The same definition says providing advertising services to a charity, for pay or as a donation, does not of itself make a charitable sales promotion. A shop-for-a-cause page on your site that lists businesses raises these definitions, so ask counsel before it goes live.

Scope line 7: neighborhood pages for community development corporations

Cleveland Neighborhood Progress says it was founded as a nonprofit in 1988 by philanthropic, civic and corporate leaders and describes itself as the only local community development intermediary in the region. It says it invests in community development corporations through grantmaking, technical assistance and city-wide initiatives. We make no claim that it funds websites, and we have no relationship with it.

A site for a neighborhood organization reads differently from a foundation’s. A resident looking for a home repair program comes first, a storefront tenant second and a funder third. The pages that matter are the ones named for the neighborhoods the organization actually serves, and only those. Web design in Cleveland for this kind of organization means the neighborhood name in plain view, plain language and a phone number that someone answers. We name no organization of this kind and say nothing about any such organization’s site.

• A page for each neighborhood the organization serves, with a map and a phone number.
• Program pages written for the resident first and the funder second.
• Event and meeting pages with dates that expire on their own.
• A page for tenants and owners of storefronts, if the organization works with them.
• A plain-language page about who the organization is and who sits on its board.

Web development in Cleveland: the lines a form cannot cover

Some organizations need more than a form and pages. If you need web development in Cleveland terms, that means anything the form cannot do alone. Typical examples are a connection that sends gifts into a donor database, member logins, event registration with capacity limits, and reports that pull from several systems.

• A donor system that receives each gift automatically.
• Member or volunteer logins with different permissions.
• Event registration with ticket types and capacity.
• Reports that combine gifts, events and program data.
• A custom feature for a program, such as an appointment system.

A Cleveland web development company should price that line on its own. Our pages on web development services and nonprofit software development describe the build. The cost cell for these lines is the published US band for a custom business site, $15,000 to $100,000, and for a foundation with several programs or sites the published band for a larger build, $50,000 to $250,000. Neither figure is a quote.

How do you tell a template from a build?

A template covers the pages and the form. A build covers anything that has to talk to another system, remember who a person is or respond to a rule. If your list has one of those, price it as its own line.

Web design in Cleveland: the whole scope with its costs, and who holds the keys

Here is the whole scope in one table. Web design in Cleveland, Ohio, and web design in Cleveland, OH, are the same job for a funder reading it: seven lines, each with an approver and a cost cell. A reader searching for website design in Cleveland who wants to compare web designers in Cleveland should ask each for a quote in this shape.

Affordable web design in Cleveland, or affordable website design in Cleveland, is a question of what to leave out. You can cut lines 6 and 7 and keep lines 2 to 5 intact, because those four carry the donor and the receipt. Asking each web designer in Cleveland for a quote that is priced line by line, instead of one that bundles everything, shows where the cuts can safely fall. The same approach works for any web design company in Cleveland you are considering, and we name none.

On ownership, our website design and development page has a section titled What you should own at the end. It says the domain, hosting, CMS admin, analytics, design files and code should all be in your organization’s name, with the agency holding access and not ownership. For a nonprofit, write down which board member can recover each login, so that no one person holds the keys. Upkeep is the monthly line: see Ohio website maintenance. For the same questions in other Ohio cities, see our pages on web design in Cincinnati and web design in Columbus, Ohio.

Published fee bands, line by line

The bands below come from other providers’ published pages and run from the typical low to the published high. None is a Progression quote and none is specific to Cleveland.

What Progression’s fixed-scope pricing starts at

Our website design and development page says our fixed-scope pricing starts at $1,400 for a landing page, $9,500 for a five to eight page brochure site and $18,000 for a ten to sixteen page business site. Our nonprofit website design page says nonprofit rates are available and that quotes follow a written scope. We use those lines here as they are published.

Related services and guides

Pages that sit beside this scope:

• Nonprofit website design
• Nonprofit SEO
• ADA compliant website design
• Website design and development
• Ohio website maintenance services
• Web design by city
• Nonprofit marketing agency
• Fundraising marketing

Frequently asked questions