Why Nonprofits Are the #1 Target for ADA Website Lawsuits

Here's a fact that should concern every nonprofit leader: nonprofits are disproportionately targeted in ADA website accessibility lawsuits.

Why? Because the combination of public-facing mission, limited budgets, and often-outdated websites creates a perfect storm of vulnerability.

In 2025, nonprofit organizations accounted for a growing share of ADA web accessibility demand letters. The plaintiffs aren't looking for deep pockets — they're looking for easy violations on websites that clearly haven't been audited.

Why Nonprofits Are Vulnerable

1. Mission = Public Accommodation

Nonprofits serve the public. Whether you provide housing, addiction recovery, food assistance, or educational programs, your services are meant for everyone — including people with disabilities. Courts have consistently held that nonprofit websites fall under ADA public accommodation requirements.

Your website is often the first point of contact for someone seeking help. If a person with a visual impairment can't navigate your site to find your intake phone number, that's not just a legal violation — it's a mission failure.

2. Budget Constraints Create Technical Debt

Most nonprofit websites were built by:

• A volunteer who knew some HTML
• A board member's nephew who "does websites"
• A donated WordPress theme that hasn't been updated in 3 years
• A web agency that delivered the project and moved on

None of these scenarios typically include accessibility testing, and the result is a site riddled with WCAG violations that nobody knows about until a demand letter arrives.

3. Content Management Without Training

Nonprofits frequently update their websites — new programs, event announcements, donor reports, staff changes. Each update is an opportunity to introduce accessibility issues:

• Uploading images without alt text
• Creating PDFs that aren't tagged for screen readers
• Embedding videos without captions
• Using low-contrast colors in flyers and graphics

Without accessibility training (which most nonprofit staff never receive), the site degrades over time.

Real Cost of a Lawsuit

For a nonprofit operating on a $500,000 annual budget, an ADA demand letter can be devastating:

Cost	Amount
Initial demand letter settlement	$5,000 - $15,000
Legal fees (if you fight)	$10,000 - $40,000
Website remediation (rush)	$3,000 - $15,000
Staff time diverted	Incalculable
Reputation damage	Incalculable

Total exposure: $18,000 - $70,000+

That's money that should be funding programs, not paying lawyers.

The 5 Most Common Violations We See on Nonprofit Websites

After auditing dozens of nonprofit websites, these violations appear on nearly every one:

1. Missing Alt Text on Images

Every image needs descriptive alternative text. Photos of events, staff headshots, infographics — if it's visual, it needs a text equivalent. This is the #1 violation across all websites, and nonprofits with photo-heavy sites are especially exposed.

2. Inaccessible PDFs

Annual reports, program guides, intake forms — nonprofits love PDFs. But a PDF created from a scanned document (essentially an image) is completely invisible to screen readers. PDFs need to be tagged with proper heading structure, reading order, and alt text.

3. Missing Form Labels

Donation forms, volunteer signup forms, contact forms — if the input fields don't have programmatically associated labels, screen reader users can't fill them out. If someone can't donate because your form is inaccessible, that's both a legal issue and a fundraising issue.

4. Poor Color Contrast

Many nonprofits use brand colors that don't meet WCAG contrast ratios. Light gray text on white backgrounds, colored text on colored backgrounds — if the contrast ratio is below 4.5:1 for normal text, it fails.

5. No Keyboard Navigation

Can you navigate your entire website using only the Tab key? If not, you're excluding users who can't use a mouse — including many people with motor disabilities who are likely the people your nonprofit serves.

How to Protect Your Nonprofit

Start With an Audit

You can't fix what you can't measure. Run a scan of your website to identify existing violations. Our free Website Intelligence Report checks for the most common issues in about 30 seconds.

Prioritize by Risk

Not all violations carry equal legal weight. Focus on:

1. Critical — missing alt text, no keyboard access, missing form labels
2. High — color contrast failures, missing skip navigation, heading hierarchy
3. Medium — missing language attribute, missing landmarks, link text quality

Train Your Team

The people updating your website need to understand the basics:

• Always add alt text when uploading images
• Use heading levels in order (H1 → H2 → H3)
• Test links and buttons with keyboard only
• Caption all videos
• Check contrast before using brand colors on web

Implement Automated Monitoring

Manual audits are a snapshot in time. As soon as someone adds a new blog post without alt text, your compliance degrades. Automated monitoring catches new issues as they appear.

Document Everything

Maintain an accessibility statement on your website. Document your audits, your remediation timeline, and your commitment to accessibility. Courts view documented good-faith efforts favorably.

The Mission Argument

Beyond legal compliance, there's a fundamental mission alignment: if your nonprofit exists to serve vulnerable populations, your website should be accessible to all of them.

People with disabilities are overrepresented in every population that nonprofits serve — housing insecurity, addiction recovery, food insecurity, healthcare access. An inaccessible website creates a barrier to the very people you exist to help.

Accessibility isn't a compliance checkbox. It's mission fulfillment.

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CT Solutions has worked with nonprofits including VOA North Louisiana and Bridge House / Grace House to build accessible, compliant digital platforms. Our Accessibility Shield provides continuous monitoring and auto-remediation starting at $497/month — a fraction of what a single demand letter costs.