01 / Veterans services

Free websites for veterans nonprofits

We donate the design and the build. Hosting is $25 a month for the first 12 months, then $50 a month. Built for organizations where somebody arriving from a search has about a minute to work out whether you can help.

Rolling, no deadline
Decision in 2 weeks
Live in 4 to 6 weeks

Apply for the grant Read the program detail

The mechanism

What it costs, stated up front

Build: Donated. $0 upfront for design or development.
Monthly: $25 a month for the first 12 months, then $50 a month. Hosting and SSL only.
Ownership: Your domain, registered in your own account. Your finished site. Your source files.
Leaving: Stop any time and take the files with you. Nothing is held hostage.

Check eligibility first

02 / How these sites get used

Six jobs, in order

Nobody browses a veterans services site. They arrive with one problem and they are timing you.

01 The service directory. What the organization actually does, written in the words a veteran would use looking for it, not the program names used in the grant that funds it.
02 Eligibility screening. Era of service, discharge characterization, county, income, whether a dependent or surviving spouse counts. Put the test on the page instead of making somebody call the office to find out they were never a match.
03 Claims and appeals navigation. Who sits with a veteran on a claim, what an accredited representative can and cannot file, what an appeal timeline looks like, what to bring to the first meeting.
04 Transportation and housing assistance. Service area, how far in advance a ride has to be booked, what the housing intake actually is, and what happens in the days after intake. This is where vague copy costs people the most.
05 Peer support groups and meeting times. Day, time, room, whether family may attend, whether to call first. One page, one link, sendable in a text message.
06 Employment programs. Which employers you have relationships with, what the training actually leads to, and whether there is a cohort start date or a rolling intake.

03 / The page that matters most

Eligibility comes before everything

On every veterans services build, this is the page written first and linked from every header. The rest of the site is arranged around it.

A veteran arriving from a search is running one test. Can this organization help with my specific problem, and am I the kind of person it serves. Everything else on the site is second, including the mission statement.

A Can you help with this? The problem list in plain words. Rent is late. The claim was denied. No ride to the appointment. Not the program taxonomy.
B Do I qualify? Stated as conditions, one per line, so somebody can answer yes or no down the list without reading a paragraph.
C What do I bring? Discharge paperwork, ID, proof of income, prior correspondence. Named specifically enough that nobody makes the trip twice.
D What happens next? Who calls, how soon, and from what number. An unknown number that goes unanswered is a lost case.
E What you do not do. With a name and a number for who does. This is the part most sites leave out, and it is the part that stops the front desk taking the same wrong call every week.

04 / Your content

Two lists, before we start

Veterans organizations are usually document rich and page poor. The material exists. It is written for a funder instead of a visitor.

You almost certainly have

Yes Grant narratives describing every program precisely.
Yes A determination letter and a board roster.
Yes A referral list held by one staff member. Often the most valuable page on the finished site, and usually the hardest to get out of somebody's inbox.
Yes Event flyers and a social feed carrying the real updates.

You are usually missing

No A service list that matches what staff do this year.
No Office hours, and whether walk-ins are taken.
No A written statement of your relationship to the VA.
No Eligibility written as conditions rather than prose.
No Anything a phone can read in a parking lot.

Copywriting is included in the award. We take the grant narrative and rewrite it for the person standing outside. What we cannot do is invent the referral list.

05 / Questions

Asked by veterans organizations

Can the site say we help with VA claims?

We publish what you tell us and what you can document. If an accredited representative works with your organization, the site names that person and their accreditation.

If you refer claims out instead, the site says that. We do not write a claim of accreditation on your behalf.

Will people think we are the VA?

Some will. That is why the footer carries a standing line stating that the organization is independent and not part of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

It is also why the list of what you do not handle sits on the same page as the list of what you do, instead of being left out to keep the page positive.

Can peer support meeting times go on the site?

Yes. Day, time, place, whether family may attend, and whether to call first. They live on one page you can send a link to.

Changing them later is a content edit. Content edits are not in the monthly and are billed separately at the normal rate. The monthly is $25 a month for the first 12 months, then $50 a month, and it covers hosting and SSL.

We are fiscally sponsored. Do we qualify?

Yes. Operating under a qualifying fiscal sponsor counts, and so does a US 501(c) exemption held in your own name, or an application pending with the IRS, with an annual operating budget under $1,000,000.

501(c)(19) veterans organizations qualify on the same terms. Full detail is on the eligibility page.

06 / Related sectors

Organizations serving veterans usually sit beside these three. All eight sector pages.