nonprofit-branding · web-design

Tembusu Trust Singapore — nonprofit website design for a city-state charity

Tembusu Trust Singapore is a fictional registered charity, an Institution of a Public Character (IPC), helping families, advisors and institutions give through giving accounts.

Tembusu Trust Singapore is a fictional registered charity, an Institution of a Public Character (IPC), helping families, advisors and institutions give through giving accounts. The edition speaks Singapore philanthropy: S$ amounts, IRAS tax rules, IPCs, PDPA privacy with a Data Protection Officer and DNC registry checks, and a donor team on +65 numbers in SGT. It keeps the calm, trust-first system of the US site and swaps every figure, name and legal detail for a local one.

Project facts

Client: Tembusu Trust Pte Ltd (fictional)
Sector: Philanthropy / Donor-advised funds
Markets: Singapore, with international grantmaking across Asia-Pacific and beyond
Services: Market localisation · Copywriting · Brand adaptation · Nonprofit website design · Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) · SEO foundations
Templates: 12 page templates shared with every Tembusu Trust edition
Stack: Hand-built HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript; one strings file and one theme file per market

The brief

One city, six desks, one trust

Singapore has no states, so the contact map becomes one city with six advisor desks: CBD, Tanjong Pagar, One-north, Orchard, Tampines and Kallang. Copy is precise and multicultural, in British spelling, with local terms kept straight: IRAS for tax, IPC for eligible charities, PDPA and DNC for data and consent. The giving account page explains contribute, invest and recommend grants in S$, with a S$5,000 minimum for individual accounts and S$250,000 for advisor-managed accounts. The research report draws on IRAS filings of 1,157 charitable sponsors.

Designing for Singapore

What actually changed between the US and this edition

Reach — US edition: All 50 states · Singapore: Across Singapore, with six district advisor desks
Money — US edition: US dollars · Singapore: S$ throughout, GST at 9% shown inclusive where consumer-facing
Tax — US edition: IRS and 501(c)(3) · Singapore: IRAS and IPC (Institution of a Public Character)
Accounts — US edition: Donor-advised fund · Singapore: Giving account, held at a registered charity / IPC
Minimums — US edition: US opening minimums · Singapore: S$5,000 individual, S$250,000 advisor-managed, grants from S$50
Grants — US edition: ACH or cheque in the US · Singapore: Reviewed and paid within five business days via ACH or cheque to IRAS-qualified IPCs
Legal — US edition: US privacy terms · Singapore: PDPA privacy policy with a Data Protection Officer, DNC registry checks, demo UEN
Look — US edition: Forest green, cream, terracotta, Fraunces · Singapore: Deep forest and moss green with cream, clay and coral; Young Serif + Plus Jakarta Sans, 18px radii

Tembusu Trust Singapore: Designing for Singapore

Brand adaptation

The same Tembusu Trust, with a local accent

Forest green carries the interface, moss green marks eyebrows and numbers, and clay with a coral accent adds warmth to italics and dark panels. Young Serif brings character to headlines; Plus Jakarta Sans, designed in Southeast Asia, keeps the interface modern. The seedling mark and the Tembusu Trust name are unchanged; the descriptor becomes Trust.

Homepage and key journeys

A joyful family photograph opens the site, followed by a single sentence of purpose and three animated counters, including grants made to nonprofits across Singapore. A horizontal Grants in Action carousel tells three funded stories in S$: early childhood in Tampines, health and aging in Jurong, conservation in Kallang. Link clusters route donors, advisors and the curious onward. The most distinctive flow is the giving account page: Contribute, Invest, Recommend grants in three numbered steps, with a side-by-side comparison of a giving account and a private foundation.

Compliance, accessibility and trust

Privacy policy under the PDPA, with a Data Protection Officer (dpo@aldertrust.sg), customer due diligence and DNC registry checks.
Terms of Use, with giving account terms subject to IRAS rules and IPC status.
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

FAQ

How do you localise a nonprofit website for Singapore?

Use S$ amounts, IRAS and IPC vocabulary, giving account language, district advisor desks, PDPA consent with a Data Protection Officer, and a demo UEN in the footer.

Can one site serve donors giving across Asia-Pacific?

Yes. The Singapore edition keeps the shared design system and locale architecture, and adds international grantmaking after an equivalency review, so cross-border donors have one point of contact.

← Projects