New website and domain name with support for online donations
Project scope, and objective;
Mcfarland outreach endowment fund
Develop a dedicated website that utilizes online donations for users to donate
with a credit card, Apple Pay, PayPal, etc., directly to the endowment fund dedicated account.
The initial main content for the webpage will be the established webpage for the endowment fund
found on the Mcfarland outreach, Internet site as seen today.
This outline contains key components, decision factors, terminology that will help us facilitate
the collection of key requirements for launching the website.
Web hosting terms/concept/requirements
*Who to choose for hosting the website?
*What shall our domain name be?
– Mcfarlandoutreach.endowment.org?
What is our development platform?
WordPress content management system
- A very common easy to use webpage development tool
- I like to call it. “PowerPoint for the web”
- Simple and straightforward administration of changes and maintenance
Webpage content: REQUIREMENTS
- About page
- Team
- History
- Contact information
- Terms and conditions
- Privacy policy
- mission statement
- webpage title
- website logo
- admin users to change or update
- media content – pictures/video
Digital funding/online donations
- PayPal, Apple Pay, Google pay
- Credit card base transactions
- ACH bank transactions
- Target bank accounts
- Email/receipt receipts to donors
- Thank you notifications
- reporting access and donation updates and reporting
- see examples from give WP plug-in
- see sample donation page from clear Lakes alliance
WordPress plug-ins
- Page functions that facilitate online donations
- Campaigns and reporting
- Donation options for users
- Common use your friendly interface
- Free plug-ins-common conclusions
- Security basics
- Starter templates
- Page development templates
- Calendar/event templates
- utilize recommended security plug-ins from WordPress
Website – cost/expenses/fees
- domain name
- website hosting monthly costs
- security “add-ons”
- domain privacy
- SSL certificate
- website scanning (detection of malware, and logged attempts.)
- transaction fee fees – credit card/PayPal, etc.
Key financial decisions
Web hosting Service
Domain name
1-5 year commitments
My Test web hosting service SUMMARY
After reviewing the top services review:
I chose blue host as my first web service to start learning webpage development, and web hosting.
With my one year subscription, I obtain one year of a free domain name, and an annual cost of about $50.
I have had a very positive experience-the word press installation and the first initial website was very easy.
Key feature to look for:
SUPPORT for nonprofit organizations and respective costs monthly
- Cost are very similar across web hosting options
- Each service offers similar features/some cases for support and security included
Web host service pitch Examples:
Blue host
– offers nonprofit hosting starting at $1.99 per month. This plan includes AI tools, secure, payment options and email marketing features.
Dreamhost
– offers free shared hosting for US base nonprofits. Their paid plans start at $1.99 per month for the launch plan which includes a domain SSLAI website builder and 25 GB storage.
Hostinger
– offers nonprofit hosting starting at $2.69 per month. This includes a free.org domain SSL certificate and website builder.
Decision factors:
- nonprofit friendly,
- free first annual domain name,
- Included security features,
- renewal costs,
- website size traffic support,
Online donation costs:
Example, fees for transactions
- PayPal charges 2.99% plus $.49
- Google pay charge is 2.9% plus $.30 and
- Apple Pay passes standard processing fees without additional charges.
- Credit card transactions typically face fees around 2.2% to 3.5% per transaction.
- ACH bank transfers cheaper at 0.8% with a five dollars cap.
Webpage examples
(development site on my johnbmccomb.com domain)
Personal learning and notes:
This is the domain – utilizing the blue host hosting service I purchased for about $50 a year
I received a one year free domain – johnbmccomb.com
I built a few test pages, including a personal page, a friends donation effort, page, and a page
I developed from copying all the existing content I found on Mcfarland’s endowment website page
and enhanced it with some tests and some ideas.
This is the environment that I hope to use for all of our testing, review, reviews, verifications, etc.
I learned the word, press administration tool, fairly easily, and developed an endowment test page that included some
Enhancements, buttons and some test donation plug-ins I experimented with.
Webpage launch requirements:
Commitments:
- Domain name
- Web hosting Service
- Security options
Details and parameters:
- Nonprofit EID
- Target bank account information
- Web content (described above)
- Transaction service accounts (PayPal account)
- Search engine keywords for Google search indexing
- email respective domain name
- administrative users and support access
- campaign details-default, donation amount list, disclaimers
Project planning, and approvals:
- Maintenance Plan – content management updates
- Testing plan – page, links, “look and feel” transaction, security verifications. Etc
- Approval process
- Launch date
Current key personal action items:
- PayPal test account/button test
- Credit card test account
- Better understanding of security options and plugins
- Better understanding of nonprofit benefits from web service
- Summary of Services – monthly, annually
- Migrate existing page to dedicated website on BluetoothUIService
- Enhance existing page content with pictures or dialogue, etc.
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Version 1
Drafted June 1, 2026
Written by John B McComb
For benefit of the Mcfarland outreach endowment committee.