Documentation for Simple Non-Profit WordPress Theme
This documentation is provided for our Simple Non-Profit WordPress Theme. You may also be interested in the other free WordPress themes that we offer.
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Installing WordPress:
If you are familiar with WordPress and you are comfortable with the process of installing it on your site you can skip down to the theme-specific documentation below. Because many people who use our themes have little or no experience with WordPress we start off by showing how easy it is to get WordPress set up. Follow the video below to get a domain name registered, web hosting set up, and WordPress installed in a matter of just a few minutes.
General WordPress Documentation:
This part of the documentation for our free WordPress themes assumes that you already have WordPress installed on your server or hosting account. If you haven’t yet installed WordPress, please see the video on this page for instructions.
There are a few WordPress settings that we recommend changing or at least checking to make sure they are accurate.
Site Name
From the WordPress dashboard (which will be located at http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/) click on “Settings” in the left sidebar.
Under the “General Settings” you can enter your church’s name in the “Site Title” field, and if you’d like you can enter a tagline in the “Tagline” field.
Time
Lower on the same page (General Settings) you can set your time zone. It’s usually easiest to select a city in your timezone.
When you are done making changes, click on the “Save Changes” button at the bottom.
Permalinks
Another change that we recommend is for the permalink settings. (Click on “Permalinks” under “Settings” in the left sidebar of the WordPress dashboard.) The permalink is the URL of a page or post created on your site. By default WordPress will give your page a permalink like http://yoursite.com/?=p123. That is not ideal for search engine rankings or for being helpful for your visitors. We recommend checking the box for “Post name”. This will give your pages URLs like http://yoursite.com/about-us/. That is much better for both search engines and human visitors.
Click the “Save Changes” button when you are done editing the permalinks settings.
Visibility
You’ll also want to make sure that your site will be accessible to search engine users. From the WordPress dashboard click on “Settings” and “Privacy” in the left sidebar. Then make sure the box is checked to allow the site to be visible to everyone.
Click the “Save Changes” button when you are done editing the visibility settings.
Widgets
WordPress themes use things called widgets to allow users to control certain, including the contents of a sidebar. Some of our themes use widgets and some don’t. When you first install WordPress it comes with a default theme, and the sidebar will look something like this:
All you have to do to change the widgets is go to “Appearance” in left sidebar of the WordPress dashboard, and then click on “widgets”.
If you look to the right side of the screen you’ll see a list of widgets under “Main Sidebar”. To remove any of the widgets, move you mouse over one of the listed widgets, left click (and hold the left mouse button) and drag the widget to somewhere in the middle of the screen, then release the mouse button.
Also please see:
Documentation for the Simple Non-Profit WordPress Theme:
This documentation will take you through the steps of setting up your site using the Simple Non-Profit WordPress Theme.
Setting Up the Pages
From the WordPress dashboard click on “pages” in the left sidebar.
Then click on “add new”.
Title the page “Home” and under “Page Attributes” select “Home” as the template. Then enter some text for the Welcome section of the homepage. Then click “publish” when you are done.
Then click “add new” again and add a page title “Events” and select the “Events” template. No content/text needs to be added to this page. Click publish when you are done.
Then click “add new” again and add a page title “News” and leave it as the template. No content/text needs to be added to this page. Click publish when you are done.
Then click on “pages” in the left sidebar again. This will list the pages that you have created plus a sample page that comes by default with your WordPress installation. Since you don’t need the sample page, click “trash” under the title (you will need to hover your mouse over the title to bring up the “trash” link).
To set up your blog, create a new page titled “Blog”. No content/text need to be added to this page, and no template should be selected. Click publish when you are done.
Now we want to set the “Home” page to be displayed when someone visits yoursite.com (your own domain name, of course). Click on “Settings” in the left sidebar and then click on “Reading”.
Then check the radio button to display a static page as your front page, and select “Home” from the drop down.
Also in the “Reading” settings, select your “Blog” page from the dropdown next to “posts page”. Then click “save changes”. Now when someone visits your blog page they will see excerpts of your most recent posts.
You can also add whatever additional pages you like. All you have to do is click on “add new page” under “Pages” in the left sidebar, and then title your page and add content.
Choosing the Color Scheme
This theme gives you the option to choose from 7 color schemes. From the dashboad click on “Theme Options” in the left sidebar, and then click on “General Settings”.
You’ll then have the option to choose the color scheme from a drop down menu. The “default” color scheme is dark gray.
Customizing the Logo
Of course, you’ll want your website to feature your own logo. If you have a logo file ready (we recommend .png format) you can easily upload it through the theme options dashboard and it will be applied to the header of all pages on your site. The logo file should be no larger than 700 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. Larger sizes will cause issues with the layout.
The logo options are located directly below the color scheme options in the general settings of the theme options.
Click on “Choose File” and find your logo file on your computer. Then click “Upload”, and then “Save Changes”. Your logo will now be shown on the header of all pages on the site.
If you do not upload a logo, which is optional, your organization name will be displayed as text in the logo area.
Common Options
Still in the “Theme Options” click on “Common Options”.
Here you will see a box to enter the organization’s address. This will be used to display the address is the website footer.
You will then also be able to enter a URL for your organization’s Facebook page and Twitter profile, if applicable. If you enter a URL here it will result in Facebook and/or Twitter icons showing up in the site footer with links to your pages/profiles. If you don’t enter anything here, the icons will not show up. When you’re done, click on the “Save All Changes” button.
The icons in the footer will look like this:
Homepage Slideshow
The homepage of the Minimal Non-Profit Theme features a slideshow that allows you to add your own images, and you can link each image to any page if you’d like. You can use this area to welcome visitors to your website, promote upcoming events, promote the current sermon series, highlight some of your ministries, or even to link to your page on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
To add items to the slideshow click on “Slides” in the left sidebar of the WordPress dashboard.
Click on “add new slide”.
Now a page will open for you to enter the slide. Give it a title (for admin purposes only, the title will not be visible on the site), and click on “set featured image” in the right sidebar.
This will open a window that allows you to insert your image for the slideshow. You can either upload the image from your hard drive by clicking “select files” or click on the “From URL” tab if the image is already online and you can enter the URL for the file.
The image you are uploading should be at least 610 pixels wide by 315 pixels high. If it is larger it will be re-sized and cropped automatically. You can use any image editor like Photoshop, or a free option like the online version of Photoshop to re-size and crop your images. If your image is smaller than 610 pixels by 315 pixels it won’t fill the area and will look awkward.
Select “full size” and then click “use as featured image”.
Then close out of the window or click “save changes”. When you are done click “publish”.
Repeat this process to add several slides. Now you’ll want to make sure the slideshow is active on your homepage, so go to “Theme Options” and the click on “Slideshow Options”. Where it asks “Do you want to display a slideshow on the homepage?” select “yes”. You can also change the transition effect between slides if you’d like, or just leave it set to random. Then click “save all changes”.
You now have a working slideshow on your homepage!
The Navigation Menu
One of the most important elements of your website is the navigation menu because it has a big impact on the usability of the site and allowing visitors to find the content that they want. You have full control over the links that are included in your navigation menu (the same menu will be used on all pages of the site). Please note: If you don’t do this step, the theme by default will include a menu with all of your pages.
From the WordPress dashboard click on “Appearance” and “Menus”.
Enter the name “Header” for your menu and click “Create Menu”.
Then select your “Header” menu in the dropdown for “Main Navigation Menu” (this step is needed in order to apply your custom menu to the site’s header).
Now move down a little lower on the page and you’ll see a list of all the pages that you have published. Check the box next to each page that you would like to add to the menu and click the “Add to Menu” button.
After clicking “Add to Menu” the pages that you have added will appear in a list at the center of your screen.
You can drag items up or down to change the order in which they are displayed (to drag, click and hold the mouse button while moving the mouse up or down). If you want to make certain links appear in a dropdown menu, move the item slightly to the right. For example, we want “Name of Program #1”, “Name of Program #2”, “Name of Program #3” and “Name of Program #4” to be used in a drop down under “Our Programs”, so we will move them slightly to the right under “Our Programs”.
When you’re done click “Save Menu” and the changes will be applied. Now you can check your site and see the menu in action.
We’re also going to set up a second menu that will be used in the site’s footer. Back in the WordPress dashboard, click on the “+” sign to add a new menu.
You’ll go through the same process as with the header menu, except name it “Footer” and then select it in the dropdown for “Footer Menu”.
Then you’ll add and arrange your menu items for the footer just like you did for the header. The one difference is that the footer menu is not designed for dropdowns, so don’t add secondary pages to the main menu items.
You’ll then have a working menu in the footer of your site (will be on every page of the site).
Adding Content
You can add new content to your website any time you need to. We’ve already gone over the process of creating a few of the key pages, but you can create new pages at any time by clicking on “Pages” and “Add New Page”.
Give your page a title and enter the text for the page. You can save it as a draft if you’re not ready to publish it yet, or you can go ahead and publish it. You can give any page a parent page if applicable. An example would be pages that you create for specific programs. You could create pages for any program and select “Programs” from the drop down as the parent. The parent page must already be created and published in order to be available for selection.
Please note that creating a new page in WordPress will not automatically add that page to your navigation menu. If you want to make the page accessible from the menu it must be added as shown in the previous section about editing the menu.
Adding Blog Posts
Your website also includes a blog. To create a blog post click on “Posts” and “Add New”.
Entering a blog post is very similar to entering the content of a page. You’ll give it a title and enter the text. In addition, you can also create categories to help organize your blog posts. In the right sidebar click on “Add New Category” and enter a category name.
Adding Events
Every useful organization website includes relevant information about upcoming events so visitors can get all the necessary info right from the website. This WordPress theme includes functionality that allows you to easily manage your own list of upcoming events. The events page will display the upcoming events according to date. As the date of an event passes, it will be automatically removed from the list on the events page.
To enter a new event click on “Events” and “Add New Event”.
Enter the title of the event, a description with all the needed information, and the location.
The next step is very important. In the right sidebar you’ll see “Event Date”. Here you will want to change the date to the date and time of the event. This is what will be used to display the event date and time on the site, and it will determine how the events are listed and when the event will disappear from the events page (after the date has passed). To change it, click on “Edit” and select the date and time of the event and click “ok” when you are done.
When you’re done and ready to publish it to the site, click on the “Schedule” button.
If at any time you need to edit the details of an event, such as if the date or time is changed, click on “Events” in the WordPress dashboard and click on the title of the event that you want to edit.
Adding News Items
Most non-profit organizations frequently have announcements or press releases that are used to communicate with supporters or the media, so we have incorporated functionality into this WordPress theme to publish those news items right on your website.
Headlines of the most recent news items will be displayed on the homepage, with links to the full text. Also, the News page template is set up to archive your news items, with the most recent being displayed first.
To enter a news item, from the WordPress dashboard click on “News” in the sidebar.
Then click on “Add New News”.
Next, enter the title and text of your news item.
Click the “publish” button when you are done.
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