Why Funders Are Starting to Ask About Website Accessibility: What UK Charities Need to Know

Most charities and community groups still treat website accessibility as a “nice to have” rather than something anyone is actually checking. That is starting to change — not because of new legislation aimed specifically at small charities, but because of who is now asking the question. Grant funders, local authorities, corporate partners and even individual donors are increasingly looking at whether a charity’s website works for everyone, and an inaccessible site can quietly cost more than a poor user experience.

Why This Is Suddenly on Funders’ Radar

Public sector bodies in the UK have had a legal duty to meet accessibility standards since 2018, under the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations. Charities themselves are not automatically covered by those regulations unless they are substantially publicly funded, but that is exactly the point: many grant-giving trusts, councils and corporate foundations now build accessibility questions into their own due diligence, partly to manage their own compliance risk and partly because inclusion sits at the heart of what most funders want their money to achieve.

In practice, this shows up as a line in an application form (“Is your organisation’s website and digital communication accessible to disabled users?”), a question in a partnership review, or a funder simply trying to use your site to find basic information and struggling. None of this requires new law to bite — it only requires someone in the funding chain to start checking.

What “Accessible” Actually Means, Briefly

The benchmark most funders and auditors refer to is WCAG 2.2 AA, the current version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. At a practical level, it asks that a website can be used by someone who is blind or partially sighted, deaf or hard of hearing, has a motor impairment, or has a cognitive or learning difference. That means things like:

• Text has enough colour contrast against its background to be read comfortably
• Every image that carries meaning has a text alternative (alt text) for screen readers
• The whole site can be navigated using a keyboard alone, not just a mouse or touchscreen
• Headings are used in a logical order, so screen reader users can understand the structure of a page
• Forms (donation forms, contact forms, volunteer sign-ups) have clear labels and sensible error messages

None of this is exotic. Most of it comes down to how a site was built and how its content is maintained, rather than an expensive redesign.

Where the Risk Actually Sits

For a charity, the practical risk of an inaccessible website is rarely a legal claim — it is more commonly one of these:

• A funding application marked down, or asked to provide an accessibility remediation plan before money is released
• Beneficiaries who rely on assistive technology giving up before they reach a referral form, donation page or helpline number
• Corporate partners or faith networks quietly choosing a different local organisation to work with because due diligence flagged a problem
• PDFs (annual reports, policies, application forms) that are unreadable by screen readers, even when the website itself is reasonably accessible

That last point catches out a lot of charities. A beautifully accessible website with an inaccessible PDF safeguarding policy or donation form attached to it is still a gap a funder or auditor can find in minutes.

A Simple First Step

You do not need a formal audit to get a useful first read on where you stand. Free online checkers (search “free website accessibility checker”) will scan a page and flag obvious colour contrast and markup issues in seconds, and running your own homepage, donation page and one PDF through one is a sensible starting point before you talk to anyone about a full fix. It will not catch everything — screen reader and keyboard testing genuinely needs a person to try it — but it gives you a concrete list to start from rather than a vague sense that “it’s probably fine.”

If a funder has already raised the question with you, that is not a reason to panic. It is usually enough to show that you understand the issue and have a realistic, proportionate plan to improve things over time — most funders are looking for good faith and a sensible direction of travel, not instant perfection.

Keeping This in Proportion

Accessibility work for a small or medium-sized charity does not need to mean rebuilding the whole website. In most cases it is a mixture of fixable content issues (missing alt text, poor heading structure, low-contrast colour choices) and a smaller number of structural issues that need a developer to address. Tackling the content issues first is usually the quickest way to show visible progress, while any structural work gets scoped properly.

Livicode Tech Solutions works with charities, CICs and faith-based organisations across Bexley, Bexleyheath, Bromley, Dartford, Greenwich and Lewisham. If a funder has asked you an accessibility question you weren’t quite ready for, or you simply want an honest read on where your website stands, tell us about it — no obligation, and no assumption that the answer has to be expensive.

Livicode Tech Solutions — Your Local Digital Solutions Partner
www.livicode.com · info@livicode.com · WhatsApp: +44 7708 803980