Squarespace for Nonprofits: The Ultimate 2025 Checklist

For a social impact organization, your website is your most critical asset. It’s the digital home for your mission—the one place online that you truly own. While social media platforms are useful for outreach, they are rented land, subject to changing algorithms and shifting priorities. Your website is the stable, controlled hub of your engagement strategy, a place to build authentic connections with your community on your own terms.

Choosing the right platform to build this digital home is a critical strategic decision. Squarespace is a popular choice, known for its beautiful design and user-friendly interface. But is Squarespace for nonprofits the right foundation for your organization’s unique needs?

Too many nonprofit websites are stuck in a “Web 1.0” mindset, acting as little more than static digital brochures that list a mission and slap a donate button on top. But to truly drive change, your website must do more than inform; it must activate. It needs to be a dynamic media hub, an inspiring action center, and a welcoming community space, all in one.

This checklist will help you evaluate if Squarespace has the power to support that vision or if its limitations will hold your mission back.

The Core Checklist: Is Squarespace the Right Digital Foundation for Your Mission?

Use these questions to look beyond the surface-level features and determine if Squarespace aligns with your long-term goals for brand, digital infrastructure, and community activation.

✔️ Visual Storytelling & Brand Expression

Your nonprofit branding is the banner under which your community gathers. It’s a container for your reputation and a symbol of the change you’re working to achieve. Your website is the primary place where this brand comes to life visually.

Squarespace is famous for its stunning, visually-driven templates. For a nonprofit looking to establish a professional and aesthetically compelling presence, this is a major advantage. The clean layouts and emphasis on high-impact imagery can help you tell your story in a way that’s both beautiful and emotionally resonant, transforming your brand from unremarkable to unforgettable.

Your Checklist Question: Does Squarespace offer enough customization to build a distinct brand, or will we get caught in a “template trap” where our site looks like everyone else’s? A powerful brand needs a unique identity, so ensure the platform provides the flexibility to express what makes your organization different.

✔️ Ease of Use vs. Team Capacity

Your digital tools should empower your team, not exhaust them. Nonprofits often rely on staff and volunteers with varying levels of technical skill to keep their website updated.

The intuitive drag-and-drop editor in this nonprofit website builder is a significant benefit here. It allows non-technical team members to make content updates, post blog articles, and add events without needing to call a developer. This simplicity can be crucial for an organization with limited resources, ensuring your digital hub remains current and active.

Your Checklist Question: Is the platform's simplicity a strategic asset, or will its underlying limitations create bottlenecks? On its Business plan, Squarespace’s user permissions are all-or-nothing, which can be a problem if you have multiple people contributing content. It also lacks robust page versioning or backup features, making it harder to revert to previous versions after a mistake. Evaluate if these constraints will hinder your team's workflow as you grow.

✔️ Donation & Fundraising Functionality

A modern nonprofit website needs to do more than just process payments; it must inspire and facilitate generosity. Your donation process is a critical touchpoint in your relationship with a supporter.

Squarespace offers built-in donation blocks that make it easy to start accepting contributions. For organizations with very simple fundraising needs, this can be a quick and easy way to get started.

However, this is where the platform’s limitations for nonprofits become most apparent. Squarespace charges a 3% platform fee on donations, which is in addition to the standard fees from payment processors like Stripe or PayPal. This can significantly reduce the net amount you receive from each gift. Furthermore, its recurring donation options are limited to weekly and monthly gifts, lacking an annual option that many donors prefer.

Your Checklist Question: Does our fundraising strategy require more than a simple button? If your goal is to build deep, lasting relationships with donors, a system with extra fees and limited options may feel transactional. A donate button isn't enough; you need a platform that helps you build a compelling case for support and makes giving a frictionless, inspiring experience.

✔️ Building a Digital Hub (Not Just a Brochure)

Your website shouldn't be a project you set and forget. It is living digital infrastructure that needs to grow with your mission, serving as a hub for your content, events, and community engagement.

Squarespace includes features like calendars for events and basic membership functionality, showing its potential to be more than a static site. You can create a blog to share impact stories, post upcoming volunteer opportunities, and create gated content for members.

The challenge arises with scale. As your content library grows, Squarespace can become unwieldy. It isn't designed for large amounts of content or complex custom content types, which can make managing a robust media hub difficult over time.

Your Checklist Question: Can Squarespace scale to become the dynamic digital hub we need for the long run? Or will we hit a ceiling that forces us back into a digital brochure model? Your website should be able to support a rich ecosystem of stories, resources, and calls to action without becoming difficult to manage.

✔️ Integration: Creating a Cohesive Digital Ecosystem

To build modern, relationship-based communications, your digital platforms must work in concert. Your website is the hub, but it needs to speak seamlessly to your email marketing platform, your CRM, and your other tools to avoid fragmented data and a disjointed supporter experience.

Squarespace can integrate with some third-party tools, including some CRMs. However, it isn't purpose-built for the nonprofit sector and may lack the deep, native integrations that nonprofit-specific platforms offer. A lack of seamless integration can create data silos, making it difficult to get a unified view of a supporter’s journey with your organization.

Your Checklist Question: Will Squarespace help us transform our digital presence from fragmented to integrated? Or will it become another data island? A truly effective digital strategy depends on systems that share information, allowing you to personalize communications and understand your community on a deeper level.

The Verdict: When Squarespace Works, and When to Look Elsewhere

Squarespace is a Strong Choice If…

• Your top priority is a visually stunning, brand-forward website and you have strong photography or video content.
• Your team has limited technical capacity and requires an intuitive, easy-to-use editor for day-to-day updates.
• Your online fundraising needs are simple, and you are willing to absorb the additional platform transaction fees for the convenience.
• You are a smaller or newer organization that needs to establish a professional and credible online presence quickly.

You Should Consider Alternatives If…

• You need robust, cost-effective, and flexible fundraising tools with more recurring giving options and no added platform fees.
• You plan to build a large and growing media hub with a high volume of articles, resources, and program pages that require sophisticated content management.
• You need granular user roles and permissions for a larger team of staff and volunteers who will be contributing to the website.
• Your core strategy relies on deep, seamless integration with a nonprofit-specific CRM to create a unified digital ecosystem.

Beyond the Platform: Building a Website That Activates

Choosing the right platform is just the first step. Even the best tool can’t fix a flawed strategy. A Squarespace site can easily become another digital brochure if it’s not built on a foundation of clear messaging, compelling brand storytelling, and a thoughtful plan for community activation.

Ultimately, your goal is to create a digital experience that transforms your organization from invisible to magnetic. This requires a holistic approach that integrates your Brand, Digital, and Activation strategies. Your website must not only look unforgettable but also function as an integrated hub that inspires your audience to take meaningful action.

Building a digital experience that earns trust, mobilizes your community, and drives your mission forward is complex work. If you're ready to move beyond the brochure and create a website that truly makes an impact, let's talk.

Book a free strategy call with Cosmic to discuss how to build the digital foundation your mission deserves.

Learn more about our Social Impact Growth Model, where we provide you with an entire team of strategists, designers, and developers dedicated to helping you thrive.