How it works

Three parts, one clear price.

A community gets a website. Someone covers the £20 a month it costs: the group, a sponsor pot, or both. Here is exactly how each part works.

A community gets a site

A fast, hand-made website is built for the group and hosted. There is nothing to install and nothing to log in to.

The £20 a month is covered

The group can pay it, pay part of it, or ask to be funded from the sponsor pot. Councils and grants can pay it too.

Kept up to date

Each week the group sends us its changes and they're published. Sponsors are thanked on the site and on the supporters page.

Where the £20 goes

A service, not a donation

The £20 a month pays for a real service delivered by one person. It is not passed to the group as cash, and it is not a charitable gift.

JW is not a charity, so Gift Aid does not apply. The money pays for the website to be built, hosted and kept up to date. That is also how we earn a living from this, which is why we'd rather be upfront about it.

What is included

  • Fast, secure hosting and the domain
  • The weekly update round (details below)
  • Contact form, privacy and cookie policies
  • Keeping the site working and looking right
The sponsor pot

How sponsors fund groups

Sponsors give any amount a month. All of it goes into one shared pot, and the pot is used to fund community websites.

1. Sponsors give

Any amount

From £5 a month, from people and local businesses.

2. The pot

One shared pot

Every payment goes in. Each week, the amount not yet used is checked.

3. Websites funded

£20 funds a site

Every £20 a month of unused support funds one more community website.

  • A group that pays part of the £20 needs less from the pot, so the pot goes further
  • Community groups come first, then community-style businesses, generally in the order they applied
  • Everyone who gives is thanked on the Our supporters page, and every funded site links to it

More about Supporting Communities

The weekly round

What "weekly updates" means

A weekly update round keeps the workload predictable, so £20 a month stays fair for everyone.

One batch a week

The group sends all its changes together by the end of Tuesday: news, events, photos, opening times.

Published Wednesday to Friday

The changes are made and published that week, between Wednesday and Friday. Anything sent after Tuesday waits for the next round.

Our mistakes are free to fix

A wrong date or a broken link on our side is corrected straight away and does not use up a round.

Bigger jobs, like adding a whole new section, are a separate conversation so one large group does not use the time meant for many small ones.

If support stops

A site never vanishes overnight

There is no contract, so a sponsor can stop at any time, and a group's own funding can change too. When support drops away, the site stays live for three months while we look for new support or talk to the group. If none is found, we'll talk through the options and help the group take its site elsewhere. The terms set this out in full.

Ready?

Pick your path

Each page has the details for you and a short form at the end.

For groups

Get a website

£20 a month, paid by you, part paid, or funded from the pot.

Find out more For sponsors

Give to the pot

Any amount a month, as a person or a business.

Find out more For funders

Grants and councils

Fund a group's site, or the pot, with quotes and invoices.

Find out more

Prefer to go straight to a form?