Rowan Trust UK - nonprofit website design and branding for a London-led charitable trust

Rowan Trust UK is the British edition of our fictional donor-advised fund sponsor, now run from Clerkenwell with a Chair, a Chief Executive and a philanthropic adviser for every region. It shares its twelve templates and design system with the US edition, but reads as a British charity: pounds and HMRC-qualified registered charities, opt-in UK GDPR consent, BACS grants and a palette of forest, paper and clay.

Project facts

• Client: Rowan Trust Ltd, registered in England & Wales (fictional)
• Sector: Philanthropy / Donor-advised funds
• Markets: London head office serving donors across the UK
• Services: Market localisation · Copywriting · Brand adaptation · Nonprofit website design · Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) · SEO foundations
• Templates: 12 page templates shared with every Rowan Trust edition
• Stack: Hand-built HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript; one strings file and one theme file per market

The brief

A British charity site that never reads as American

The risk with a UK edition is inheriting the US one: dollars, the IRS, 501(c)(3) status, state-level giving. Rowan Trust UK keeps the editorial calm and the trust-first structure, then replaces every figure, institution and place. Giving accounts open from £5,000, grants reach HMRC-qualified registered charities, and the annual report is audited in sterling. Consent is opt-in under UK GDPR and PECR, with Reject all as prominent as Accept all.

Designing for United Kingdom

What actually changed between the US and this edition

• Story - US edition: US sponsor, multi-locale ready from day one · United Kingdom: Founded in London by three families and a single adviser; UK-wide service
• Places - US edition: Ohio, Arizona, Oregon, Maricopa County · United Kingdom: Yorkshire, Devon, Perthshire; grants across the UK
• Money - US edition: Dollar amounts and US formatting · United Kingdom: £2.4m, £5.6 billion in grants, £14.8 billion in charitable assets
• Rules - US edition: IRS, 501(c)(3), 401(k) · United Kingdom: HMRC, registered charity, workplace pension
• Grants - US edition: U.S. charities, all 50 states · United Kingdom: HMRC-qualified registered charities plus vetted international organisations; £50 minimum grant
• Legal - US edition: State privacy rights, US consent notice · United Kingdom: UK GDPR and PECR opt-in consent; Privacy notice, Cookie policy, Terms, Accessibility statement
• Contact - US edition: Interactive map of the US with regional advisers · United Kingdom: London office at 18 Clerkenwell Road; 020 7946 0142; one working day response
• Look - US edition: Forest green, cream, terracotta, Fraunces + Libre Franklin · United Kingdom: Forest, paper and clay; Newsreader + Instrument Sans

Brand adaptation

The same Rowan Trust, with a local accent

Forest green and paper carry the interface, with clay for action and a muted rose gold for celebratory moments; every pairing is AA-checked. Newsreader gives headlines a literary, bookish tone and Instrument Sans keeps forms and navigation plain. The seedling mark and the Giving that grows for generations line are unchanged from the US edition.

Homepage and key journeys

The homepage opens on a family photograph that settles into place, then a single sentence of purpose and three counters restated in sterling: £5.6 billion granted to charities across the UK, 412,000 charities and thirty years of grantmaking. The Grants in Action carousel tells three UK stories, from 14 rural nursery classrooms in Yorkshire to 18,000 hectares of Perthshire forest. The distinctive flow is the giving account path: Contribute, Invest, Recommend grants, with a dedicated adviser route beside it.

Compliance, accessibility and trust

• Privacy notice under the UK GDPR and PECR naming Rowan Trust Ltd as controller, with opt-in consent and Reject all as prominent as Accept all.
• Footer company line: registered in England & Wales with company and VAT numbers and the registered office at 18 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1M 5RN.
• Accessibility statement and cookie policy linked from every page; no US regulators or schemes.
• Passes automated WCAG 2.2 AA checks on every page at 360, 390, 768 and 1440 px: no contrast failures, no unreachable controls, no horizontal scrolling.
• A language switcher built from hreflang sits in the header on desktop and in the footer on phones.

One system, twelve markets

Every visible string lives in one file per market, and every colour and typeface in one theme file. This edition needed no new templates or components: a strings file, a theme, regional photography and local legal content made it a different brand experience. For a charitable foundation with international plans, a new market becomes a content project rather than a rebuild.

Deliverables

• Market profile: language, formats, legal and seasonality
• Full localised copy across 12 templates, header, footer and forms
• Brand adaptation: palette, type pairing and logo descriptor
• 27 regional photographs (Pexels, credited in credits.json)
• Local legal content
• Accessibility pass (WCAG 2.2 AA, automated) and QA at four screen widths
• Portfolio media: stills, full-page captures, scroll video, OG image, brand board