Why Your Mental Model of a Website Might Be Holding You Back

A website redesign isn’t really about technology. It’s about change.

That might sound obvious at first, but think about it. The whole point of a redesign is to move from one state to another: a site that’s out of date, clunky, or misaligned with your mission, toward something more modern, usable, and effective.

The tools matter, of course. But what you’re ultimately trying to change are behaviors: how your staff update and manage the site, and how your audience interacts with it.

The trouble is, most organizations don’t approach their websites this way. They treat redesigns as technology projects. Not because they don’t care about outcomes, but because they’re using the wrong mental models to understand what a website is.

And when the mental model is off, even the best-intentioned leaders end up focusing on the wrong levers.

The mental models that hold websites back

Here are five common ways leaders unconsciously frame websites that make them feel like tech projects instead of change efforts:

• The website as a project. If it’s a project, you design it, build it, ship it, and call it done. The problem is that a website isn’t a static artifact. It’s a living system that decays the moment people stop actively engaging with it.

• The website as a capital expense. Many organizations budget for websites like they would for a new roof: replace it every few years, then forget about it. That mindset virtually guarantees a cycle of neglect, followed by a massive one-off project that feels painful for everyone involved.

• The website as a set of features. Success is defined as “the website platform does X, the site has Y, the navigation includes Z.” But features are only ever proxies. A clear navigation only matters if it changes user behavior. A new backend only matters if staff actually use it.

• The website as a marcomms problem. In many nonprofits, the website gets handed to the comms team. That framing narrows the conversation to branding, messaging, and content updates, while overlooking how the site supports programs, fundraising, advocacy, or service delivery. However, a website is cross-functional by nature. It belongs to the whole organization, not just one department.

• The website as a launch event. Too often, the finish line is defined as “we launched the site.” In reality, launch day is just the starting line. That’s when the hard work of adoption, training, and behavior change begins.

Each of these mental models makes a redesign feel like a technical deliverable rather than a change effort. And that’s why so many websites end up looking polished, yet underperforming.

How agencies reinforce these models

It’s worth being honest here: agencies have played a role in reinforcing these mental models.

Websites are often sold as technology or marketing projects because that’s what fits neatly into an RFP and aligns with how budgets are structured. A well-defined project with a clear scope and end date is easier to package, price, and deliver than an open-ended engagement around change.

That dynamic benefits agencies, but it comes at a cost to nonprofits. It reinforces the idea that a website is a one-off deliverable—a piece of technology to be bought—rather than a platform that requires adoption, training, and new ways of working to succeed.

Most of the time this isn’t intentional. It’s simply the market at work: nonprofits want to buy “a new website,” and agencies are happy to sell one. But the result is a vicious cycle that leaves organizations with a polished new tool but without the behavioral changes needed to make it valuable.

What agencies should do differently

If agencies want to help nonprofits realize the full potential of a redesign, they need to stop selling websites as deliverables and start supporting them as change initiatives.

That means putting adoption and outcomes at the center, rather than treating them as afterthoughts. Training, governance, and support should be part of the engagement from the start, not tacked on at the end.

It also means redefining success. Agencies shouldn’t measure their work solely by whether a site launched on time or checked all the feature boxes. The better measure is whether staff are empowered to manage the site effectively, whether audiences engage more deeply, and whether the site is advancing the mission.

And it means seeing the relationship as ongoing. A website isn’t static, and neither is a nonprofit’s mission. Agencies should operate less like contractors who hand over a finished product and more like long-term partners who help steward the site as needs, programs, and audiences evolve.

In short, agencies can either reinforce the flawed mental models or model better ones. When they choose the latter, nonprofits end up with a website that doesn’t just look good, but truly supports their mission.

What nonprofits should do differently

If you want a website redesign to reach its potential, you need different mental models that put behavior, adoption, and outcomes at the center.

• The website as a platform for habits. The real question isn’t “What did we build?” but “What will this enable people to do differently and consistently?”

• The website as an ongoing program. Instead of treating it like a one-time purchase, treat it as something that requires ongoing stewardship, investment, and iteration.

• The website as an enabler of behaviors. A feature is only valuable if it unlocks new actions. For staff, that might mean easier updates; for visitors, it might mean clearer next steps.

• The website as an organizational change. Ownership belongs not just to comms, but to everyone whose work relies on the site. It’s a shared platform, not a department’s tool.

• The website as the starting line. The true measure of success isn’t the launch itself, but what happens in the months and years afterward. Are staff adopting the workflows? Are visitors engaging differently? Are outcomes improving?

Why this matters

Leaders don’t ignore change management on purpose. They simply default to the mental models that make websites feel like tech. And agencies, sometimes unintentionally, reinforce that perspective because it makes the buying and selling process easier.

But those models limit the potential of the project before it even begins.

A polished new site without changed behaviors is like buying exercise equipment and never using it. It looks impressive, but nothing in your life actually improves.

A redesign approached with the right mental models, on the other hand, becomes something more powerful. It’s not just a better tool. It’s a catalyst for new habits, new ways of working, and new forms of engagement with your audience.

That’s the shift worth making. Not just for your next website, but for how you think about digital projects altogether.