Stardotstar is giving away £50,000* worth of websites to charities and community groups

Stardotstar, a boutique-sized digital agency based in Manchester’s Northern Quarter , is making a difference with a £50,000 in-kind giveaway of 1000 one-page websites.

Having secured funding from Nominet Trust to launch a platform that enables people in the UK to easily ‘make a website that makes a difference’, the agency is celebrating national volunteering charity CSV’s Make a Difference Day (27 October) by offering 1000 websites to organisations in need.

The website builder has been christened ‘Jam’, and offers an easy-to-use editor, with support available through video tutorials and a simple ‘recipe’ which makes it quick and easy to plan a website from scratch.

The Huddersfield Canal Society were involved in the pilot phase of this project and are now benefiting from their own Jam site.  In this video, they share their experience and the difference it has made:

If you’re involved with a charity, work in marketing or digital, or want to create a community website yourself, you could help Stardotstar make sure 1000 websites find good homes. Get in touch to find out more, either via Jam’s website: madewithjam.org, or by looking up ‘madewithjam’ on Twitter or Facebook.

How to get your own Jam site

If you’d prefer to get started immediately and build your one-page Jam website (free for one year, then just £1 per week), simply visit madewithjam.org and enter the voucher code MADnominettrust before midnight on 5th November 2012.

Jam-Maker-in-Chief Kate Fox, and the rest of the Jam team at Stardotstar will be online to take questions from charities, community groups and volunteers on Friday 26th October via their Twitter account @madewithjam, and the hashtag #makejam - quiz them on anything from building Jam websites to social media.

Gareth Langley, co-founder of Stardotstar explains why a digital agency would want to give away 1000 websites: “As an agency we’ve found that we’re often approached by deserving organisations that can’t afford us. When you’re helping to build schools in Uganda, or protecting your local canal, you need a website that won’t sap time and resources, so we conceived Jam as a lightweight way for grassroots groups to get online.”

"Having just one page, has many advantages - the main one being simplicity; it’s far easier to get the important story, or message out quickly, in a way that’s easy for your audience to understand."

“We believe that effective websites have the ability to change human behaviour. By using Jam’s simple tools, not-for-profits, charities and community groups can make an effective website, improving the world around them.”

The benefits of a Jam website include:

• So easy to use that you don’t need to be a website whiz to build a beautiful site
• Hands-on paper planning tool to help your organisation craft their content
• Creates one-page websites with one clear message - helps your organisation communicate effectively.
• The perfect tool for pro-bono jobs - give back to your community with free websites for a year

* sites usually cost £1 per week (£4 per month).