Accessible Websites for Charities and Sports Foundations: A Practical WCAG 2.2 Guide
By Amit Saini, founder of Vimana Digital · Published 23 October 2026
A charity website meets WCAG 2.2 when people with visual, motor, hearing and cognitive impairments can find information, donate, book and sign up without barriers. Target Level AA: sufficient colour contrast, labelled forms, full keyboard use, clear headings and link text, captions, and accessible log-ins. Build it into the design and code, then test it.
Why does accessibility matter so much for charities and foundations?
Because your audience is everyone, and a large share of it is disabled. Scope puts the number of disabled people in the UK at 16 million, about one in four (Scope via AbilityNet, updated April 2023). For a community foundation running health, education and inclusion programmes, the share among the people you serve is often higher.
The web as a whole is not ready for them. WebAIM's 2025 analysis of the top million home pages found (WebAIM, February 2025):
- 94.8% had detectable WCAG 2 failures, with an average of 51 errors per page.
- 79.1% had low-contrast text.
- 55.5% had images with missing alternative text.
- 48.2% had form inputs with no label.
- 45.4% had empty links, such as an icon with no text a screen reader can announce.
Those last two matter most to charities. A donation form, a volunteer sign-up and a "register your child" form are all forms. An icon-only "Donate" button is an empty link.
There is a fundraising argument too. In Scope's research, 48% of disabled shoppers who hit a problem on a website went elsewhere to buy (Scope via AbilityNet, 2019). Donors behave like shoppers. A supporter who can't complete your donation form gives somewhere else, or not at all.
Do charity websites legally have to meet WCAG 2.2?
Not automatically, but the obligations are real:
- Equality Act 2010. Service providers, including charities, must make reasonable adjustments so disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage. A website is part of how you provide your services.
- Public sector bodies. The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 require public-sector websites to meet WCAG at AA and publish an accessibility statement. Charities that deliver public contracts may find the same expectation written into the contract.
- Selling to EU customers. The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025 and covers ecommerce services sold to EU consumers (European Commission). A charity shop shipping to Ireland or France should take note. Penalties are set country by country, so ignore any article quoting one fine figure.
- Funders and partners. Accessibility can be part of the brief from day one: Notts County Foundation's new platform had WCAG 2.2 compliance as its core requirement.
Foundations working with young people have a related duty on the data side: the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 added "children's higher protection matters" for online services likely to be used by children (ICO, February 2026). It is a data-protection rule, not an accessibility one, but both come up in the same build.
This is a summary, not legal advice. Take advice for your organisation's position.
Where do charity and sports foundation websites usually fail?
Every charity site has the same handful of pages that matter most. Here is where each tends to break, and what WCAG expects:
| Page | Common failure | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Donation form | Unlabelled amount buttons, errors shown only in red, a timeout mid-payment | Every field labelled, errors described in words, no unexpected time limits |
| Programme and session pages | Headings chosen for size, "click here" links, timetables as images | Real heading structure, descriptive link text, timetables as text or tables |
| Sign-up and registration (parents, volunteers) | Asking for the same details twice, CAPTCHA puzzles | Details carried forward, log-ins that allow password managers and paste |
| Match-day, event and fixture pages | Carousels that auto-play, tiny tap targets on calendars | Pause controls, targets at least 24 by 24 pixels |
| Impact stories and news | Photos of participants with no alt text, videos without captions | Meaningful alt text, captions and transcripts |
| Annual reports and policies | Scanned PDFs a screen reader can't read | Accessible HTML pages, or tagged PDFs |
| Sticky headers and cookie banners | Covering the item a keyboard user has tabbed to | Focus never hidden behind fixed elements |
The full list of what WCAG 2.2 added over 2.1, with how we test each one, is on our website testing and accessibility page.
Is an accessibility widget enough?
No. Overlay widgets add a toolbar on top of the page: bigger text, higher contrast, a dyslexia font. They can be genuinely useful to some visitors. What they cannot do is fix the code beneath: a form field with no label still has no label, and a button a keyboard can't reach is still unreachable.
That is why, on the Notts County Foundation platform, we did it in this order:
- 1Build around WCAG 2.2 requirements from the start. The site was built around the criteria across content, navigation and interaction, rather than patched afterwards.
- 2Build the donation journey and CRM into the same platform, so supporter forms followed the same rules as every other page.
- 3Then add an in-house toolkit for personal preferences. Visitors can adjust contrast, saturation and link highlighting; text size, spacing and line height; switch to a dyslexia-friendly font or larger cursor; pause animations, hide images and use a reading mask that isolates one band of the page.
- 4Test before launch against the WCAG 2.2 success criteria.
Building the toolkit and donation software in-house removed the typical monthly cost of a third-party accessibility widget and reduced reliance on subscription donation plugins. It also means a vendor's price rise or product change can't alter how those parts of the Foundation's site behave.
What we've learned building for charities
The Foundation received proposals from several agencies and chose us because we could deliver the website, a bespoke CRM, donation software and accessibility as one joined-up build. Vimana Digital is now an official partner of Notts County Foundation. Its CEO described the experience in the case study:
"They cut through the jargon, simplify the complexities and bring a genuinely open and transparent approach." (Ajay Sharma, CEO, Notts County Foundation, case study testimonial)
Smaller charities need the same plain-English approach at a smaller scale. We built a free WordPress microsite for Bundles of Hope in Long Eaton (Bundles of Hope), and charity clients have reviewed us on Google:
"…he is a great website designer and provided our charity with a fabulous new website." (Bundles of Hope)
"From conception of idea right through to your finalised website, Amit is there to support you every step of the way." (Charity Fundraising Auctions)
5.0 from 50 Google reviews.
Where should a charity start?
- Run a free automated check on your home page and donation page with a tool such as WAVE from WebAIM. It finds roughly the kinds of errors listed above, not all of them.
- Try your donation form with the keyboard only. Tab through it, fill it in, submit it. If you get stuck, so will a supporter.
- Zoom your browser to 200% and check nothing overlaps or disappears.
- Ask a disabled supporter or service user to try the sign-up journey. Their feedback beats any scanner.
- Publish an accessibility statement saying what you meet, what you don't yet and how people can get help.
- Get a proper audit that reports each failure against its WCAG criterion number before you commission fixes or a rebuild.
On cost: our WordPress sites start from around £1,000, and complex or bespoke builds like the Foundation's from £5,000. Prices exclude VAT. Accessibility testing is quoted per project.
Where to go next
To have your current site tested, see our website testing services, which cover WCAG 2.2 checks with a screen reader, keyboard-only use, 200% zoom and automated scanning, reported against each criterion. To see a full WCAG 2.2 charity build, read the Notts County Foundation case study. For new platforms with donations or a CRM built in, see bespoke web development and CRM development.
WCAG 2.2 forcharities: yourquestions answered
Not covered here? Call and ask. We reply within 24 hours.
Do charity websites have to meet WCAG 2.2?
Not by name, unless the charity is a public-sector body or a contract requires it. But the Equality Act 2010 requires service providers, including charities, to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, and a website is part of your service. WCAG 2.2 Level AA is the clearest way to show you have taken that duty seriously.
What does WCAG 2.2 Level AA mean?
WCAG has three levels: A is the minimum, AA the widely adopted standard, and AAA the strictest. Level AA covers essentials such as 4.5:1 contrast for body text, labelled forms, keyboard access, visible focus, captions and, new in 2.2, larger tap targets and log-ins without memory puzzles. Most organisations target AA.
Does an accessibility overlay make our charity website compliant?
No. An overlay toolbar can help some visitors adjust text size or contrast, but it does not repair missing form labels, broken keyboard navigation or poor heading structure in the underlying code. Fix the site first. A preferences toolkit, like the one we built for Notts County Foundation, then becomes a useful extra rather than a cover-up.
How much does an accessible charity website cost?
It depends on what the site does. Our WordPress websites start from around £1,000, and complex or bespoke platforms with donation software, a CRM or a custom accessibility toolkit start from £5,000. Building to WCAG 2.2 from the start costs far less than retrofitting an existing site after an audit finds problems.
How do we test our charity website for accessibility?
Combine automated and human testing. Free scanners such as WAVE catch missing labels, alt text and contrast errors. Then test manually: keyboard only, a screen reader, 200% zoom and a real user with access needs. A professional audit lists each failure against its WCAG criterion number, so your developer knows exactly what to fix.
Send us your website address and the three journeys that matter most, usually donating, signing up and finding a programme. We'll tell you plainly what fails, what it would cost to fix, and whether a fix or a rebuild makes more sense.
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