Does your nonprofit website need to be ADA compliant?

If you've ever Googled this question, you've probably ended up more confused than when you started. The answers range from “yes, absolutely, you could get sued” to “it depends” to “nonprofits are exempt”—sometimes all on the same page. So let's cut through it.

The short answer is: probably yes, and even if you're not legally required to comply, you almost certainly should anyway. Here's why.

What the ADA actually says about websites

The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed in 1990—well before the internet was part of everyday life. It doesn't mention websites at all. But over the past decade, courts have increasingly interpreted the ADA to cover digital spaces, particularly under Title III, which applies to “places of public accommodation.”

What counts as a place of public accommodation? Basically any organization that serves the public—which includes most nonprofits. Courts in several states have ruled that inaccessible websites violate the ADA, and the Department of Justice has made clear that it considers web accessibility part of ADA compliance for covered organizations.

In 2024, the DOJ finalized new rules requiring state and local government websites to meet a specific accessibility standard—WCAG 2.1 Level AA. While that rule applies specifically to government entities, it signals the direction things are heading for everyone else.

So: no, there's no law that says “nonprofit websites must comply with WCAG 2.1 by this date.” But there's a growing body of case law, regulatory guidance, and legal risk that makes accessibility something you can’t responsibly ignore.

What about nonprofits specifically?

Here’s where a lot of organizations get tripped up. There’s a common assumption that because you’re a nonprofit—mission-driven, budget-constrained, doing good in the world—you’re somehow exempt from accessibility requirements. That’s not really how it works.

If your organization has 15 or more employees, you’re covered by the ADA. If you receive federal funding, you’re subject to Section 508, which has its own accessibility requirements. And even if you fall below those thresholds, state laws may still apply depending on where you operate.

More practically: accessibility lawsuits have increased significantly over the past several years, and nonprofits are not immune. Demand letters—the step before a lawsuit—have become increasingly common. The good news is that courts generally look more favorably on organizations that can demonstrate a good-faith effort to improve accessibility, even if they’re not fully compliant yet.

What does “accessible” actually mean?

When people talk about web accessibility, they’re usually referring to WCAG—the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These are internationally recognized standards developed by the W3C (the organization that sets web standards) and they’re organized around four core principles. Your website should be:

Perceivable—people can access your content regardless of how they experience it. This means things like alt text on images, captions on videos, and enough color contrast that text is readable for people with low vision.

Operable—people can navigate and use your site without a mouse. Someone using only a keyboard, or a switch device, or voice control should be able to get around your site without hitting a wall.

Understandable—your content and navigation are clear and consistent. This one overlaps a lot with just good UX—plain language, logical page structure, forms that tell you when you’ve made an error.

Robust—your site works with assistive technologies like screen readers. This is mostly about clean code, but it matters a lot for people who rely on those tools.

WCAG comes in three levels: A, AA, and AAA. Level AA is the standard most commonly referenced in legal contexts, and it’s what most accessibility audits are measured against.

Why this matters beyond legal compliance

Here’s the part I actually care about most: accessibility isn’t just a legal checkbox. It’s a reflection of whether your organization’s values extend to your digital presence.

Think about who you serve. If you’re a domestic violence shelter, a legal aid clinic, a reproductive health provider, or an LGBTQ+ support organization—the people who need you most may also be the people most likely to face barriers on an inaccessible website. Someone using a screen reader because of a visual impairment. Someone on an older phone with a slow connection. Someone navigating your site under stress, in a hurry, without a lot of bandwidth to figure out a confusing interface.

Accessibility is how you make sure your website actually serves everyone it’s supposed to serve—not just the people who happen to have a fast internet connection and perfect vision and no disabilities.

So where do you start?

If you’re not sure where your site currently stands, a good first step is running it through a free automated checker like WebAIM's WAVE tool. It won’t catch everything—automated tools only identify about 30% of accessibility issues—but it’ll give you a quick picture of the most obvious problems.

From there, the most common issues to look for are:

• Images without alt text

• Low color contrast between text and background

• Forms without clear labels

• Pages that can’t be navigated by keyboard alone

• Videos without captions

If you’d like a more thorough look—or if you want someone to actually walk through your site and identify what’s getting in the way of the people you serve—that’s exactly the kind of work I do. Feel free to reach out and tell me a bit about your organization.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s progress, documented and ongoing. And it starts with taking the question seriously—which, if you’ve read this far, you clearly already are.