Most nonprofit websites have navigation that was built around how the organization thinks about itself, not how visitors actually use the site. That’s the core problem. And it’s fixable.
This guide is for communications staff and EDs who are about to review a sitemap with their designer, or who need to prep their team for that conversation. The first section is a cheat sheet you can use right now. The rest is the full breakdown if you want to understand the thinking behind it.
Before your internal review: questions to answer as a team
These questions will save you significant time in your sitemap discussion. You can work through them yourself or with your designer. It is best to get a good draft of your sitemap and then share that draft with stakeholders.
- What do people actually come to your site to do? Pull your top 10 to 15 most-visited pages from analytics. That list tells you what your navigation should prioritize. Your internal org structure does not.
- What do organizers, members, and field staff ask for by name? Those terms are your resource category labels. If people in the field say “the maternal health toolkit,” your nav label is Toolkits. If no one on your team can explain the difference between a report and a handbook, combine them into one category.
- What content only matters for part of the year? Action alerts, bills of interest, legislative session pages, and issue proposals do not need to live in your primary nav year-round. Decide in advance how they will appear during active periods and step back when the season ends. Your navigation does not have to be static.
- What do you want a first-time visitor to do? That is your primary call to action. It should look visually different from every other nav item and there should only be one of them.
- What lives in your footer versus your main menu? The footer is not a graveyard. It is a secondary nav for things that are real and findable but do not need to be up top: annual reports, newsletters, press, contact, accessibility statement. Visitors who do not find what they need in the main nav often scroll to the footer as a fallback.
- What content does not fit cleanly into your existing categories? Make a list before your review call. Some content will not fit neatly into your issue areas or resource types. Decide in advance whether it lives in the footer, surfaces on the homepage during active campaigns, or gets its own dedicated home.
- Who needs to weigh in and when? Get your comms team to a recommended version first. Then bring in field staff or your organizing director for a gut check on terminology and what users actually search for. Opening a raw draft sitemap to too many voices too early generates noise, not clarity. Present a near-final recommended version and ask for red flags, not a redesign.
The full guide
If you want to understand the reasoning behind the questions above, this section breaks it down. Use it to make better decisions during your review, push back when something does not feel right, and explain your thinking to the rest of your team.
Organize by task, not by org chart
The most common mistake in nonprofit navigation is a sitemap that mirrors internal structure. Departments own pages. Programs get their own top-level items. The ED’s priorities end up in the menu.
Visitors do not care how your organization is structured internally. They come with a goal: learn about your work, find out how to get involved, check if you are credible before they give money or time. Your nav should answer those questions quickly without making them think.
Before you approve any sitemap, ask: what does a first-time visitor actually come here to do? What does a funder need to find in under two minutes? What does a potential volunteer or community member look for first? Build from those questions, not from your org chart.
Keep top-level nav items to 5 to 7
Humans can comfortably hold about seven things in working memory at once. That is not a design preference, it is just how we are wired. If you are looking at a sitemap with 9 or 10 top-level items, something needs to be collapsed, moved to the footer, or cut.
More nav items does not mean more access. It usually means more confusion.
Use plain language, and match the words your users already use
Navigation labels are one of the most debated parts of any sitemap review. Here is a simple way to think about it: could a stranger read the label and correctly predict what they are about to find? If yes, keep it. If no, rename it.
The second question matters just as much: is this the word your members, organizers, or community members actually use? If your field staff call something a toolkit and your nav calls it a resource guide, people will not connect the two. Use the language your users bring with them, not the language your team settled on internally three website redesigns ago.
Some labels work as umbrellas. “Our Work” is a good example. If the dropdown underneath it is specific and well-organized, the top-level label does not need to do all the work. The sub-items carry the meaning.
Some labels are slightly vague and should be replaced. “What We Do” and “What We’re About” are the most common offenders. Ask: what is actually in here? Whatever the honest answer is, that is your label. About. Programs. Issues. Campaigns. Name the thing, not the concept of the thing.
Keep labels to 2 to 3 words when you can. Short labels scan faster on mobile and they force you to be specific.
On your About section specifically: mission, vision, and values do not need to be separate pages. Giving them each their own page fragments your story. Put it all on one About page. Cover who you are, why you exist, what you believe, and who leads the organization. Sub-pages are fine if your organization genuinely cannot fit it all on one page, but that is the exception, not the default.
How to think through your resources section
For many nonprofits, the resources section is the hardest part of the sitemap to get right. Organizations produce multiple content types over many years and the categories accumulate without a clear logic: fact sheets, toolkits, reports, handbooks, newsletters, testimony, member resources. By the time you are doing a redesign, no one can fully explain what lives where or why.
Start here: what do organizers and members actually ask for by name when they are in the field or doing comms work? That is your category structure. If the answer is toolkits and fact sheets, those are your two categories. If your team has been using reports and handbooks interchangeably for years and nobody notices the difference, combine them.
A few practical decisions to make as a team:
- Fact sheets are usually their own category. They update frequently, they have a distinct format, and people look for them specifically.
- Reports, handbooks, and toolkits are often interchangeable in practice. If your organization only publishes one or two major handbooks every few years, those do not need their own nav category. Feature them as highlighted resources or fold them into your reports section.
- Newsletters and leader testimony often do not belong in the resources dropdown at all. Consider whether they fit better under your latest updates or blog section, or whether they belong in the footer where members can find them without cluttering the main menu.
- Member resources as a standalone category works well when your members are your primary organizing base and you know exactly what they are coming to find. The question to ask is not whether to have it, but whether the content inside it is genuinely member-specific and actively used. If your organizers are regularly directing members to resources on that page, it earns its place. If the section has accumulated a mix of things that are also linked elsewhere on the site and nobody is sure what belongs there, that is a signal to clean it up and sharpen the focus rather than abandon the category altogether.
- A mega menu format works well for resources sections because it lets visitors see all the categories at once with a short descriptor under each one, so they can quickly decide where to go without clicking around to find it.
Seasonal and campaign-based navigation
Advocacy organizations have navigation needs that change throughout the year. During a legislative session, action alerts and bills of interest are high priority. Outside of session, they are low traffic. Campaign proposals might matter for three weeks a year. A specific campaign might warrant its own nav item for a few months and then step back.
Your navigation does not have to be static. Plan in advance for how it will shift. A few approaches that work:
- Keep time-sensitive content in the footer during off-seasons and surface it in the main nav during active periods.
- During a legislative session or election season, consider adding a temporary top-level item like “Legislation” or “Elections” that houses action alerts, bills you are tracking, contact your lawmakers together, or important voting dates. Remove it when the session or campaign ends.
- For content that is only relevant for a few weeks each year, like an priorities voting form, do not give it a permanent nav home. Feature it on the homepage during the active period and let it step back when it is not relevant. A permanent nav item for something that only matters occasionally creates confusion for visitors who click it and find nothing actionable for that moment.
When content does not fit cleanly
Every organization has content that does not fit neatly into its issue areas or resource categories. Work on a topic that gets classified under a broader issue area. A campaign that cuts across multiple areas. Resources that are not really resources and are not really news either.
A few ways to handle it:
- The footer is your best friend for content that is real and findable but does not belong in the primary menu. Visitors who do not find something in the main nav scroll to the footer. Put it there.
- The homepage is your best overflow valve for content that is currently active. If something matters right now, feature it on the homepage and link directly to the page. It does not need to live in the nav to be visible.
- Section landing pages can do a lot of work. If something does not fit neatly into a nav category, it might fit as a related resource on the closest issue or section page.
Dropdowns: one level max, mega menu if you genuinely need two
A single-level dropdown is fine. Two levels of dropdowns get frustrating fast. Users accidentally close the menu or land somewhere they did not mean to go.
If your content depth genuinely requires two tiers of navigation, use a mega menu. The advantage is that visitors can see everything at once rather than trying to remember what is under what. Use it only when you actually need the structure.
Practical limits: 2 to 3 columns per panel, 4 to 6 links per column, 15 links total maximum per panel. If everything is prominent, nothing is.
Make the primary CTA stand out
Your most important call to action needs to look different from every other nav item. Different color, different treatment. It should be obvious at a glance that it is the thing you most want people to do. For most nonprofits that is Donate or Volunteer. For advocacy orgs it might be Take Action or Sign the Petition. It should not visually blend in with your About page link.
Show visitors where they are
If someone lands on an interior page from a Google search or a link in your newsletter, they need to know where they are on your site. Active states on nav items and breadcrumbs on interior pages solve this. Without them, visitors get disoriented, especially on content-heavy sites.
Use a sticky nav on content-heavy sites or a scroll-to-top button
If you have long pages, dense reports, or content people need to scroll through, a sticky nav or scroll-to-top button is not optional. Visitors should not have to scroll back to the top of a long policy brief to navigate somewhere else.
Design mobile in parallel, not as an afterthought
Whatever works on desktop needs a deliberate mobile treatment. A mega menu that looks polished on a wide screen will fall apart on a phone without a real plan for it. Accordion menus and layered panels are the standard approach for mobile. Design mobile alongside desktop, not after.
Treat the footer as a real secondary nav
The footer is not a graveyard for everything that did not fit in the main menu. It is a secondary navigation layer that handles content that does not belong up top but still needs to be findable: annual reports, your 990, press materials, careers, accessibility statements, contact info.
A good footer also functions as a site index. For larger organizations with deep content, the footer is where you can surface direct links to popular pages that would clutter the main nav if they lived there. Policy briefs, key campaigns, issue pages, regional resources. Visitors who do not find what they need in the main nav often scroll to the footer as a fallback. Give them something useful when they get there.
Quick reference: navigation specs
When you are in the weeds of a sitemap review, it helps to have a clear ceiling for the technical decisions. These are the limits to hold to:
- Top-level items: 5 to 7 maximum
- Dropdown levels: one level only, use a mega menu if you genuinely need two
- Mega menu limits: 2 to 3 columns, 4 to 6 links per column, 15 links total maximum per panel
- Label length: 2 to 3 words, plain language, no internal jargon
- Primary CTA: visually distinct from everything else in the nav, one only
- Mobile: must have a deliberate mobile treatment, not an afterthought
- Footer: real secondary nav including annual reports, 990, press, careers, accessibility statement, contact
- Sticky nav: required on any page people have to scroll through
- Current page indicator: always, active states on nav items and breadcrumbs on interior pages
The “does it earn its place” test
Before adding any link to your navigation, ask three questions:
- Does a visitor need this link to make a navigation decision, or can they find it once they land on the section page?
- Is the label clear enough that someone who has never heard of your organization knows what they are clicking into?
- Will this link still be accurate and relevant six months from now?
If the answer to any of those is no, it belongs on an interior page, not in the menu.
