Why I recommend Cloudflare for charity websites

In this digital era, the online presence of a charity plays a vital role. Running a fast, secure, and reliable website can be difficult, especially for the majority of charities working on a tight digital budget. This is why I recommend Cloudflare to all our clients, with powerful (and free) features made to boost websites’ performance and security.

My passion for all things tech started with programming a ZX81 as a kid and hasn't wavered during the 25+ years of working in the sector. Being at the helm of an agency (with my amazing business partner, Jack de Wolf) has meant that we have been able build something we are truly proud of. A brilliant team of committed, passionate individuals with a common aim - to use our skills and our 9-5 to use in making a positive difference through the work we do with our amazing charity clients.

Chris Todhunter, Founder and Technical Director

1. Rapid DNS Management: Making Certain Your Site is Quickly Accessible

DNS is similar to the Internet’s “phone book.” It is responsible for translating domain names, such as www.yourcharity.org, into IP addresses that should be loaded onto browsers. Slowness in DNS resolution can slow down your website with the end result being visitors’ frustration and possibly lost support or donations.

Cloudflare has a vast global DNS network, which speeds up the time it takes for a web browser to connect to your website as these queries are resolved in milliseconds by Cloudflare. This works particularly well for charities with a global reach; it enables supporters from any location access the site with minimal delays.

DNS records can be proxied through Cloudflare, hiding the IP address of your web server from the outside world and protecting your server (or any other service which is accessed online) from being attacked directly. This means that changes to and proxied DNS records happen instantly, but other changes can also happen much quicker than with the likes of GoDaddy or 123Reg, enabling tasks like authenticating domains with Mailchimp to happen in pretty much real time, rather than waiting for hours for a DNS change to propagate.

Benefits of DNS Hosting with Cloudflare

Speed: Quicker DNS resolution means faster loading times for websites
Reliability: The Cloudflare DNS is a highly available and fault-tolerant one, making sure your site is always accessible online in case of an attack on the DNS
Global Reach: Cloudflare’s global network means rapid access for users across the globe

2. Caching: Making Websites Load Faster and Reducing Server Load

Caching is absolutely an essential feature for any website, especially charities that rely on online donations where smooth user experience is vital. That includes keeping copies of the pages and content on your website’s server relatively nearer to the visitors of your site. It means that whenever somebody will enter into your website, they will get the hold of the stored information quick without waiting for it to come from the server.

Cloudflare provides great caching options in its free plan, which can do wonders to help improve the performance of your charity website. Cloudflare can cache any static assets, such as images, CSS, and JavaScript files. Caching these files reduces the burden on your web server and speeds up the delivery of content from your website to the end-users. With this, not only does user experience improve but also leads to less expenditure on hosting, as bandwidth and server resources used by your site get greatly reduced. This, in turn, can reduce the carbon footprint of your site. The majority of our WordPress sites are hosted by Positive Internet and are accredited by the Green Web Foundation as being run on green energy, as is Cloudflare. Not all hosting providers are as eco-conscious however, so reducing the amount of data served by a less green server can help reduce the environmental cost of your site.

Benefits of Cloudflare Caching

Reduced Load Times: Static content will load quickly from a nearby location
Less Server Load: Static content is delivered elsewhere, therefore unburdening the server from such service duties and allowing the server to handle more critical tasks
Lower Hosting Costs: Using less bandwidth can reduce hosting charges
Lower Carbon Footprint: Data served by Cloudflare’s network is powered by green energy

3. Full-Site Caching: Maximising Speed and Efficiency for Static Websites

For charity websites that consist mostly of static content, we can take performance a step further by implementing full-site caching. This is a feature that allows us to cache the whole front end of your website, so all the pages with static content will be served not from your web server but from the Cloudflare global network. A WordPress plugin handles clearing the cache, so any changes you make to the website will still be available to your visitors straight away.

Full site caching is most beneficial to those websites not featuring dynamic content such as user accounts and shopping carts, although we can implement workarounds for these scenarios. Caching the entire site enables Cloudflare to deliver pages nearly instantly to visitors no matter where they are in the world. This not only lets the users enjoy a better experience but also dramatically reduces the workload on your web server, which translates into cost and carbon savings.

Benefits of Caching at the Full Site Level with Cloudflare

Near-Instantaneous Load Times: Pages are served from the closest Cloudflare server, guaranteeing fast access
Improved User Experience: Fast and frictionless experiences increase visitor engagement and improve conversions the site
Lowered Server Costs: All content served is directly from the Cloudflare cache, therefore reducing requests made to your hosting server, which in turn saves on bandwidth and resource use
Lower Carbon Footprint: No compute power is used to render a web page, reducing the environmental impact of each page view

4. Safety Features: Safeguarding Your Website and its Visitors

While security is an immense issue on its own when it comes to any website, if the site is a charity website and contains sensitive information like donor data, the importance security really ramps up a notch.

Among all the important security features provided by Cloudflare, the Web Application Firewall (WAF) is one of the most important. It protects your site from threats such as SQL injection attacks and cross-site scripting. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection stops sites from being overwhelmed by malicious attacks, where hackers use networks of bots to simultaneously visit a website to take it down. All these features mean your site will be much more secure and protected from the most prevalent attacks, maintaining the reputation of your charity and its donors’ trust.

Benefits of Cloudflare’s Security:

DDoS Protection: Your site stays online when a traffic spike occurs due to malicious attacks
Web Application Firewall (WAF): Protection from common exploits and vulnerabilities
SSL/TLS Encryption: This secures the connection between a website and its visitors, allowing prospective donors to feel more secure

Conclusion: A Free Service to Improve Your Website – We Think It’s a No Brainer!

We have helped dozens of clients to transition their websites over to Cloudflare and the process for your IT team takes about five minutes from start to finish. We give clients full access to all the settings, so your IT team can still manage your DNS records as and when they need to, keeping them in control when it comes to configuring email, VPNs etc.

If your charity isn’t benefitting from the great free features that Cloudflare provides, now is the time to get on board! With very little effort and no money spent, it could significantly increase the speed, security, and overall user experience on your website, making it easier for you to maximise your engagement and conversion rates.