Is Your Charity’s Website Accessible? A Plain-English Guide to WCAG 2.2 AA

If your charity or community group relies on its website to take donations, recruit volunteers, or explain your services to people who need them, accessibility isn’t a nice-to-have. For a growing number of funders, and for a meaningful share of your visitors, it’s the difference between a site that works and one that quietly turns people away.

This guide explains what “accessible” actually means in practice, why it matters more for the charity sector than most, and how to start checking your own site without spending a penny.

What WCAG 2.2 AA actually asks for

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the internationally recognised standard for accessible websites, published by the W3C. Version 2.2 is the current release, and “AA” is the middle of three conformance levels (A, AA, AAA) — it’s the level referenced by UK public sector accessibility regulations and the level most funders and auditors expect as a baseline.

In plain English, WCAG 2.2 AA is built around four principles. A website should be:

• Perceivable — information and interface elements must be presentable in ways people can perceive, for example providing text alternatives for images and enough colour contrast between text and background.
• Operable — everything on the page should be usable by keyboard alone, with no time limits that can’t be extended, and no content that flashes in ways that could trigger seizures.
• Understandable — text should be readable, pages should behave predictably, and forms should help people avoid and correct mistakes.
• Robust — content should work reliably with current and future browsers, and with assistive technology such as screen readers.

None of this is exotic. Most of it comes down to sensible defaults: proper heading structure, descriptive link text instead of “click here”, labelled form fields, alt text on meaningful images, and enough contrast that text is legible in bright sunlight or for someone with low vision.

Why this matters more if you’re a charity

Every organisation benefits from an accessible website, but charities have three extra reasons to take it seriously.

Your beneficiaries are more likely to need it

Disability, age-related impairment, and reduced digital confidence are all more common among the groups many charities exist to serve. If your website is hard to navigate with a screen reader, or your donation form is unusable by keyboard, you’re excluding some of the very people your organisation is there for.

Funders are asking about it

It’s increasingly common for grant applications and funder due diligence to ask directly about digital accessibility, safeguarding, and inclusion practices. Being able to answer honestly and positively — rather than being caught out — is a genuinely useful thing to have in order before your next application.

The public sector rules set the tone, even if they don’t apply to you directly

The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 legally require most public sector websites to meet WCAG 2.2 AA and publish an accessibility statement. Charities aren’t automatically covered by these regulations in the same way, but many operate alongside councils, schools, and NHS partners who are — and increasingly, accessibility is simply expected as good practice across the voluntary sector, not just a legal minimum for the public sector.

A free 15-minute self-check

You don’t need a budget or a developer to get a first read on where your site stands. Try these checks yourself, on your own website, right now:

1. Unplug your mouse. Try navigating your homepage, your donate page, and your contact form using only the Tab and Enter keys. Can you reach everything? Can you always see which element is focused?
2. Zoom to 200%. Increase your browser’s zoom level. Does the text stay readable, or does content overlap and cut off?
3. Check your images. Right-click a few meaningful images (not decorative ones) and view the page source, or use your browser’s accessibility inspector, to see if they have alt text describing what they show.
4. Read your links out of context. List every “click here” or “read more” link on a page. Would someone using a screen reader’s “list all links” feature understand where each one goes?
5. Run a free automated checker. Tools that check for common WCAG issues — broken contrast, missing alt text, unlabelled form fields — are freely available online and will flag obvious problems in minutes. They won’t catch everything (automated tools typically find under half of all issues), but they’re a solid starting point.

If any of these throw up problems, you’re not alone — this is genuinely common, even among well-resourced organisations, because accessibility is rarely taught as part of standard web design training.

Where to go from a self-check

A DIY check is a useful first pass, but it isn’t the same as a proper accessibility audit, which tests against the full set of WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria using both automated tools and manual testing — including with real assistive technology like screen readers. That level of detail matters most before a funding application, a rebuild, or if you’ve had feedback from a supporter that they’ve struggled to use your site.

If you’d like a second pair of eyes on how your charity’s website performs against WCAG 2.2 AA, or want to talk through what a full audit would involve, take a look at our accessibility services or get in touch for a no-obligation conversation. We work with charities and community organisations across South East London and North Kent, and we’d rather help you fix a problem for free advice than watch you find out about it from a funder.