Now Live · Third Sector Infrastructure · #NoCommunityLeftOffline
Everything your organisation needs to be found, and to run.
Switchboard is the full service digital platform for the third sector. A free, accessible website in under ten minutes. A place in a national index so people can find you. And, when you are ready, the tools to run the whole organisation behind it.
Because participation should never be determined by digital access alone.
The Challenge
The scale of exclusion is bigger than most people realise.
3.8 million
people in the UK lack essential digital skills for everyday life.
UK Government, Digital Inclusion Action Plan
2.8 million
people in the UK have no internet access at all.
Ofcom, Digital disadvantage in the UK
1.7 million
UK households have no internet access at home.
UK Parliament POST, Digital Exclusion
8%
of internet users say they lack confidence online.
Ofcom, Digital disadvantage in the UK
49%
of disabled people say poor accessibility has put them off donating online.
Charity Times
71%
of disabled customers will leave a website that is difficult to use.
Click-Away Pound Report
When services cannot be found, support does not reach the people who need it most.
Why We Built This
Most community support is real, but invisible.
Hard to find.
The third sector is doing essential work in every town, estate and rural village, and there is no reliable way for people to find it.
Held together by hand.
Organisations run on a website nobody has time to update, a spreadsheet for donors, another for volunteers, a shoebox for receipts and one person who knows how it all fits together.
Paid for by goodwill.
The people keeping it going are volunteers and part-time staff who were hired to help people, not to manage software.
Our response.
Switchboard makes support discoverable, and then takes the administrative weight off the people carrying it. One platform, one login, one place where everything lives.
Zero-Barrier Entry
Start free, in ten minutes.
If you can fill out a form, you can launch a credible website.
Tell us your organisation's name and we will find your charity registration and fill in what we can. Tell us what you do and who you help. Choose how you want it to look. Your website is live, and you are in the national index.
No templates to fight with. No developer. No hosting bill. No maintenance. If you already have a site on Wix, Squarespace or WordPress, we will move it across. If you have never had one, that is fine too.
Accessibility
Every design we offer meets WCAG 2.2 AA, the accessibility standard funders and public bodies expect. We do not offer one that does not.
Already have a website?
If you already have a site on Wix, Squarespace or WordPress, we will move it across. If you have never had one, that is fine too.
What happens at launch
Your website is live, and you are in the national index. Discoverable by anyone searching for what you do, near where you are.
What Switchboard Gives You
Three things, one platform.
It is not a website builder. It is not a listings site. It is the digital platform underneath the whole organisation, and it starts free.
An accessible website of your own, plus a listing in a national index.
People do not know who helps. They know what is wrong. The national index is built around that. Someone can search for what they need, near where they are, and find you.
Free to browse. Free to be listed. Always, on every plan.
Verified charity registration, safeguarding declarations and quality marks shown clearly.
So people and funders can see you are who you say you are. Trust signals are not an add-on — they are built into every listing from day one.
Available on all plans.
Donations, volunteers, supporters, staff, funding, reporting, marketing and retail.
All in one place, all talking to each other. Everything you are currently holding together with spreadsheets, in a single platform that does not require technical skills to use.
Available on Core and above.
Be Found
People do not know who helps. They know what is wrong.
The national index is built around that. Someone can search for what they need, near where they are, and find you.
Free to browse. Free to be listed. Always, on every plan.
- Search by need rather than by organisation name
- Search by area and how far you travel
- Filter by accessibility, language and cultural provision
- See opening times and whether a referral is needed
- Thematic and place-based hubs with shared calendars
- Coverage maps that show funders and councils where the gaps are
Run the Organisation
Everything you are currently holding together with spreadsheets.
Fundraising and donations
Donation pages for one-off, regular, in memory and appeal giving. Gift Aid collected properly, with your HMRC claim prepared for you. Appeal thermometers, team and sponsored fundraising pages, and legacy and major donor tracking.
Supporters and contacts
Donors, funders, volunteers, partners and the people you support, in one place. Giving history, contact history, saved lists, and alerts when a regular giver lapses. Sensitive case notes stay restricted to the people who should see them.
Volunteers and staff
Records, rotas with swap requests, onboarding checklists, training and DBS renewals flagged before they expire, and timesheets that record hours against the grant paying for them, so your reporting is already done.
Recruitment
Post paid roles and volunteer opportunities, show them on your own website, take applications, track candidates and report on equal opportunities anonymously.
Funding and impact
Track what you set out to change, who you reached, and the evidence behind it. Quotes, photographs and case studies stored with consent. Funding won recorded as you go, so the annual report writes itself from real numbers.
Email and social
Newsletters, appeals and event invitations sent from your own address. Automatic thank you and welcome messages. One calendar for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Bluesky and Mastodon, with a nudge to add image descriptions every time.
Shops, cafes and stock
Card readers for the shop, the cafe, the event and the collection tin, working even when the connection drops. Stock, food bank supplies, equipment and assets tracked, with records of what went where for funders. An online shop that shares the same stock, with Gift Aid on qualifying sales.
The AI Layer
The writing, done from what you already have.
The work that quietly consumes a small charity is writing. Funding bids, funder reports, trustee papers, impact stories, plain English copy. Every one starts from a blank page, usually late at night, usually done by someone who was hired to do something else.
Switchboard includes an assistant that works from your own information. Your profile, your past applications, your results, your evidence. It drafts from what you have already done rather than from nothing.
Our commitment
We are not tied to a single AI supplier, so the technology behind it can change without anything changing for you. Your information is never used to train anyone's AI.
Included on Core and above, subject to fair usage.
- Funding applications drafted from your history and the funder's own criteria
- New funding found for you, with eligibility checked and deadlines flagged
- Funder reports built from what you have already recorded
- Trustee and board papers drafted from the month's activity
- Impact stories written from real evidence and quotes
- Plain English rewriting, at the reading age you choose
- Translation into the languages your community speaks
- Accessibility checks on your words before you publish
Built on the Same Platform as Everything Else We Make
The same system that runs national conferences runs your food bank.
Switchboard runs on Engine, the platform behind every Community Stack product. In practice that means three things.
Enterprise-grade infrastructure, charity price.
The security, reliability and record keeping normally reserved for large organisations, on a free charity account.
Accessibility all the way through.
Screens your volunteers use that are as accessible as the pages the public sees, because organisers have access needs too.
Your data, your exit.
Your information stays yours, exportable in full, at any time, at no cost, with no request form and no exit fee.
National Campaign
#NoCommunityLeftOffline
We are leading a national campaign to make sure every community organisation, especially in rural and underserved areas, can be found, supported and reached. This is not digital transformation theatre. It is infrastructure: visibility, accessibility and participation.
Rural inclusion and regional access
Accessibility as standard, not as an upgrade
Making local support findable by need rather than by network
Taking work off volunteers instead of adding to it
Online Now, Offline Next
Web access is the starting point, not the limit.
From year two we add ways to reach support without a modern device or a reliable connection: local phone numbers that talk you through what is available, a text message service where you describe what you need and get local options back, both in multiple languages, and printed directories for places where none of that reaches.
This is the part nobody else will build.
Now
Web-first discovery and accessible websites
Year Two (Roadmap)
Local phone numbers, voice navigation, SMS discovery, multi-language support, printed directories
Roadmap
What is coming and when.
Live
Your website, the national index, hubs, events, volunteering, donations and Gift Aid, campaigns and the knowledge base.
AI and supporter tools
The AI assistant, supporter records, email and social media.
Operations
Funding search and matching, impact reporting, staff and volunteer management, timesheets, recruitment and the shared grant board.
Commerce and offline
Card payments, stock and the online shop. Resource sharing between organisations, campaigning together, ecosystem insight, and access by phone and text message.
Pricing
Priced for inclusion, not distortion.
Every organisation stays discoverable, whatever they pay. Paying more adds capability. It never buys eligibility, and it never buys a better position for a worse service.
All prices exclude VAT. AI assistance on Core and above is subject to fair usage.
Free
£0
Your website, the national index, donations and Gift Aid, volunteers and events
Basic
£10 / month
Your own web address, full control of the design, media library, more fundraising tools. Or £100 a year.
Core
£25 / month
+ £15 per team member
The AI assistant, supporter records, email marketing, social media scheduling
Plus
£59 / month
+ £10 per team member
Funding search, impact reporting, staff and volunteers, timesheets, recruitment, card payments, stock and online shop
Enterprise
From £1,000 / year
Multiple sites, advanced governance, dedicated support
Programme
Contact us
Funded by a funder or local authority, covering a whole area
Funders and local authorities: a programme puts every organisation in an area onto the platform at once, with coverage mapping included, so you can see what a place actually has and what it is missing. Talk to us about a programme
Responsible Insight
Understanding the sector without controlling it.
Switchboard helps build a clearer picture of what support exists and where it is missing, without becoming extractive. Information about individual people never leaves your organisation. Anything we report across the sector is counted, never identifiable, and that is built into how the system works rather than promised in a policy.
We look at
- How far services reach
- How volunteering is holding up
- How people are getting online
- How well organisations are working together
- Where whole areas have no provision at all
"Participation should never be determined by digital access alone. The organisations closest to the people who need help most are the ones least likely to be found. That is a solvable problem, and it should not cost them anything to solve."
Ethan Sumner
Founder & CEO