Pixels for Purpose: A New Website for Greenwich Foodbank

This is a post I've been looking forward to writing for a while.

Greenwich Foodbank got in touch because their website had become a problem. Not a cosmetic one. The kind where the people who need help can't easily find it, and the people who want to give it aren't sure where to start. So we built them a new one. Free.

That's Pixels for Purpose. One website a year, donated in full, to a London charity or CIC that actually needs it. Greenwich Foodbank is the first, and I'm genuinely chuffed it's them.

Why I started Pixels for Purpose

I grew up in London. Not the glossy version. And at a point when things could have gone badly, organisations like Connexions stepped in and helped me. Careers advice, support, and, more importantly, access to computers and the digital skills I now make a living from.

Nobody sends you an invoice for that kind of help. So this is me paying it back in the only currency I've got. Design and code.

Pixels for Purpose isn't a marketing stunt with a heart emoji attached. It's one properly built website a year, done the same way we do paid work, for an organisation that would otherwise be quoted thousands they don't have. And to be clear, I'm not doing it to look generous. I'm doing it because a London charity helped me, and this is what I can actually do about that.

What Greenwich Foodbank actually needed

Greenwich Foodbank was founded in 2012 by a group of community leaders, and they've supported the Royal Borough through austerity, the pandemic and the cost of living crisis since. They're run by local people, for local people. Their stated mission is to end the need for unsuitable, unsustainable and undignified food support in the borough, which is a considerably braver position than quietly accepting foodbanks as normal.

Their old site had a job to do and was making a mess of it. When your site is the front door for people in crisis, clarity isn't a nice to have. It's the whole point.

So the new site does three things properly. It tells you how to get emergency food if you need it. It makes donating and fundraising straightforward. And it gives volunteering a clear route in. Everything else is built around those three jobs, and nothing was added just because we had space in the nav. It's fully responsive, built to be accessible, and it carries their actual personality rather than a generic charity template.

Taking on a Greenwich project had a bit of personal resonance too. We've written before about why Greenwich businesses deserve a website as sharp as the Cutty Sark, and this time the borough got one for free.

What the programme actually covers

One free brochure-style website per year, with a build value of £2,000 or more. That includes the design, the build, polishing your copy so it works on the web, stock imagery, responsive and accessible design, and two rounds of revisions.

What it doesn't include: e-commerce, complex systems, custom integrations, or a stream of add-ons once work starts. Boundaries sound unglamorous, but they're the reason these projects actually launch instead of drifting for eight months. Hosting and support sit at £20 a month, because a website needs looking after long after the launch post has gone quiet.

How to apply

I review new applications every January. If you run a London registered charity or CIC, you serve a London community, you're a small to medium organisation, and a new website would genuinely change how you operate, I want to hear from you.

You don't need a slick application. You need to explain what your website is stopping you from doing. That's the bit I care about.

The full details and eligibility criteria live on the Pixels for Purpose page. And if your organisation isn't a fit but you know one that is, send this their way. Word of mouth is how things like this actually travel.

Key Takeaways

Wrapping up

Greenwich Foodbank does hard, unglamorous, essential work in my city. The least I could do was build them something that gets out of their way.

One down. One every year after this. If you want to see what a paid project looks like, the rebuild for a London cleaning firm is a decent place to start.