REACH gives you flexibility in how you make your sponsorships, fundraising opportunities and other content available to supporters.
You can:
- Use REACH as your website
- Keep your existing website and link to REACH
- Embed REACH content into your existing website
You can also combine these approaches based on your organization’s needs.
There is no requirement to replace your existing website in order to use REACH.
Option 1: Use REACH as Your Website
You can use REACH as your organization’s primary public-facing website.
This option allows you to keep your website, fundraising tools, sponsorship program and donor management system together in one platform.
Using Portal Templates, you can customize your REACH site to match your organization and determine how your public content is displayed.
You can customize areas such as your:
- Branding
- Colors and fonts
- Homepage
- Header and Footer
- Navigation
- Sponsorship pages
- Campaign pages
- Project and Place pages
- Other REACH content
You can also create custom Pages for content about your organization.
Consider this option if:
- You don’t have an existing website.
- You want to simplify the number of platforms your organization manages.
- You want your website and REACH content managed together.
- You want to build and maintain your site without needing custom development.
Learn more: See our Portal Templates and Portal Branding documentation.
Option 2: Keep Your Existing Website and Link to REACH
You can keep your organization’s existing website and use navigation tools to connect visitors to your REACH portal to donate, sponsor or interact with other REACH features you use. The branding and customization you do to your REACH portal is meant to make this integration a seamless experience for visitors to your website.
For example, you might have a Sponsor a Child button or menu link on your existing website that links to your REACH sponsorship page.
Or, a Donate button could open a Donation Form created in REACH.
You can link to REACH from your website’s:
- Main navigation menu
- Buttons
- Calls to action
- Images
- Fundraising pages
- Other website content
Your current website remains primary, while REACH provides the additional public-facing features you choose to use.
Consider this option if:
- You already have a website you want to keep.
- You want a simple way to add REACH functionality to your existing site.
- You don’t mind linking to a public portal outside your primary website.
- You want minimal changes to your existing website.
This is often the quickest way to connect an existing website to REACH.
Note: REACH does offer custom domain names, which is one more way to make the visitor experience more seamless with the REACH integration.
Option 3: Embed REACH Into Your Existing Website
If you want to keep your existing website while creating a more integrated experience, you can use REACH Embeds.
Embeds allow supported REACH content to appear directly on your existing website.
REACH Embeds are available for:
- Sponsorships
- Campaigns
- Projects
- Places
You create and customize the Embed within REACH and then add the provided embed code to your existing website.
Your organization continues to manage the information in REACH. When that information changes, the updated content is reflected in the Embed in real time, without requiring you to maintain the same information separately on your website.
Embeds can be used with website platforms that allow you to add the required embed code, including platforms such as WordPress, Webflow and Squarespace.
Consider this option if:
- You want to keep your existing website.
- You want supporters to browse REACH content without leaving your website.
- You want REACH to remain the place where your team manages that content.
- Your website supports adding embed code.
Learn more: See our Embeds documentation for setup and customization instructions.
You Can Combine These Options
You don’t have to use the same approach for every REACH feature.
For example, your organization could:
- Keep your existing website.
- Embed Sponsorships directly into a Sponsor a Child page.
- Link to special fundraising initiatives like REACH Campaigns or a Christmas Catalog.
- Send existing supporters to the REACH Donor Portal to manage their accounts.
Choose the combination that works best for your website, your team and your supporters.
What About Themes?
If your organization has been using REACH for some time, you may currently use a Theme for your public REACH site.
Themes are the previous method of customizing a REACH website and require code for many customizations.
Portal Templates are now the recommended option and provide a more modern, user-friendly interface to customize your REACH public portal.
If your organization is currently using a Theme, see Migrating from Themes to Portal Templates for instructions on making the switch.
Before You Launch
Whichever approach you choose, we recommend reviewing the visitor experience before directing anyone to your REACH content.
Test the pages and features you plan to use, review your branding and content, and make sure your navigation and links take supporters where you expect them to go.
If you’re using Portal Templates, you can use REACH’s Staging environment to customize and review your site before making your changes live.
If you’re using links or Embeds on an existing website, test them from your website as a visitor to your website would.
What’s Next?
Once you’ve decided how you want to use REACH for or with your website:
- Review the Portal Template documentation if you’ll use REACH as your website.
- Review the Embeds documentation if you’ll display REACH content on an existing website.
- Continue through REACH Setup to configure, test and prepare your account for launch.