Your community
deserves a website
that works as hard
as you do.
Rural municipalities, parish councils, and First Nations Band Councils are required to publish meeting agendas, minutes, bylaws, and financial statements — and to do it accessibly. Most aren't meeting this obligation because they don't have a website that makes it easy.
AODA compliance is a legal requirement — and your competitive differentiator. Ontario’s Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act requires public organisations to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA. Most small-market web agencies don’t build to this standard. Every site I build does.
Who this page is for
Three different organisations.
The same underserved need.
Rural municipalities, parish/community councils, and First Nations Band Councils all have transparency and communication obligations, limited internal digital capacity, and communities that deserve clear, accessible online information. Each has distinct regulatory requirements — and each gets a build that reflects that.
Rural Municipalities
Small townships, villages, and municipalities across Ontario with formal council governance, annual budgets, and statutory transparency obligations under the Municipal Act. Often managed by a clerk-administrator who handles web as one of many duties.
Governed by: Ontario Municipal Act, 2001 · AODA · French Language Services Act (designated areas)
Parish & Community Councils
Volunteer-run local improvement committees, community associations, and parish councils that manage community facilities, events, and local improvement programs. Frequently running on no technical infrastructure at all — Facebook or nothing.
Governed by: Ontario Corporations Act (if incorporated) · AODA where applicable · Municipal enabling bylaws
First Nations Band Councils
First Nations Band Councils governed under the Indian Act or self-governance agreements. Federal funding agreements typically require a web presence. Community communication, language revitalisation, cultural programming, and transparency about community services and governance are central needs.
Governed by: Indian Act (federal) · Self-governance agreements · Indigenous Services Canada requirements · AODA best practice
AODA compliance
Most web agencies
don't build to
WCAG 2.0 AA.
I do.
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act requires organisations with 20 or more employees to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA — and for smaller organisations, it is best practice and increasingly expected. Non-compliance creates legal liability and, more importantly, excludes community members who depend on accessible information.
AODA compliance is also the single most effective differentiator in this market. Most small-market agencies don’t build to this standard. Leading with it positions every site I build as the right choice for any public or community organisation in Ontario.
Municipalities and public organisations that receive AODA complaints can be ordered to remediate their website — at their own cost, on a fixed timeline, with follow-up review. Beyond legal exposure, a non-accessible website excludes the community members who most need access to public information: older residents, those with visual impairments, and those using assistive technology. For a community organisation, that exclusion is a mission failure.
Most agencies building small-scale government and community websites don't audit for WCAG compliance. Being able to clearly state "every site I build meets WCAG 2.0 Level AA" — and to demonstrate it — is a meaningful differentiator in a procurement process where the municipality's clerk is comparing two or three proposals. It's also often a requirement in RFPs; winning the requirement before the RFP is issued is better still.
What most council websites get wrong
Transparency obligations
that aren't being met.
Most small councils and municipalities are not meeting their transparency and accessibility obligations online — not because they don’t care, but because the tools they have make it impossible to manage.
Minutes and agendas posted inconsistently
Under the Municipal Act, municipalities must post meeting agendas before meetings and minutes after. Most small municipalities post them inconsistently — if at all — because uploading to their current website is technically complicated. An ACF document management section that any administrator can update in three clicks solves this entirely.
AODA non-compliance — a growing liability
Municipalities are increasingly receiving AODA accessibility complaints about their websites. Remediation orders require fixes on a fixed timeline, often at significant cost. A site built to WCAG 2.0 AA from the start doesn't need remediation — and demonstrates that the organisation takes its accessibility obligations seriously.
Council directory out of date after every election
Municipal elections happen every four years. Council composition changes. The person who set up the website three years ago may not work there anymore. An ACF-managed council directory that any clerk can update in minutes — without touching any code — is the solution to a problem every municipality has.
No emergency communication mechanism
Road closures, water advisories, severe weather notices, emergency meetings — these need to reach community members fast. Most council websites have no alert or emergency notice system. A prominently displayed alert banner, manageable from the WordPress admin in seconds, ensures urgent information is visible immediately.
Facebook instead of a website
Parish councils and community organisations frequently operate entirely on Facebook — no website, no consistent contact information, no searchable document history. Facebook content isn't indexed by Google, isn't accessible to all community members, and can't meet transparency obligations. A real website changes all of this.
Invisible to grant eligibility criteria
Several provincial and federal funding programs expect a credible web presence as part of eligibility. Some explicitly require it. A community organisation that doesn't have a professional website may be unknowingly excluding itself from funding it would otherwise qualify for. The website pays for itself in grant eligibility alone.
Document management & transparency
Post it once.
Findable forever.
The transparency obligation isn’t just to post documents — it’s to make them accessible and findable. A document library on a properly structured website is indexed by Google, navigable by date and category, and accessible to anyone with a screen reader. A folder of PDFs on a Facebook page is none of these things.
Every site I build includes an ACF-managed document library. Any staff member can upload a PDF, add a title and date, and select a category. It appears in the right section immediately — no code, no developer, no delay.
Meeting agendas and minutes
Uploaded before and after each meeting. Sorted by date automatically. Searchable by residents. Dated and labelled for compliance.
Bylaws and policies
Organised by category, searchable by title, always publicly accessible. New bylaws added by the clerk in under a minute.
Budgets and financial statements
Annual operating budgets, audited financial statements, and grant reporting — all publicly accessible, clearly dated, easy to find.
Funding & grants
Multiple funding streams
exist for this.
Most organisations
don't know.
Provincial and federal programs specifically fund digital communications infrastructure for rural municipalities, community organisations, and First Nations Band Councils. In many cases, a credible web presence is required for the grant — meaning the website pays for itself by unlocking funding that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Provincial transfer payments to small and rural municipalities. Administrative and communications costs — including website development — are eligible operating expenses within the annual budget.
Band Councils can access ISC program funding that includes communications infrastructure. Many funding agreements explicitly require a web presence as part of program delivery obligations.
Federal funding for First Nations community infrastructure including digital communications capacity. Targeted specifically at communities with limited internal technical capacity.
Ontario funding for rural community economic development. Digital presence and online communication infrastructure are eligible expenses under community development projects.
Community capacity building grants accessible to small municipalities and their partners. Digital capacity is an eligible area under community resilience and civic engagement funding.
First Nations Band Councils
A community website
built in genuine
collaboration.
First Nations Band Council websites are genuinely different from municipal or community council sites — in their purpose, their content, their cultural requirements, and the relationships needed to build them well. I approach Band Council projects through consultation and collaboration, not from a template. Federal funding agreements often require a web presence. That's the starting point — but it's not the ceiling. A well-built Band Council site serves community members, communicates services, supports language and cultural programming, and demonstrates to the broader world what the community is and values.
Community consultation before design
The site reflects the community's voice, values, and visual identity — not a generic government template. This requires conversation before a single design decision is made.
Community photography used with permission
Images should show the actual community — landscapes, cultural events, community gatherings — photographed with appropriate consent and attribution.
Language content handled with care
If the site includes content in an Indigenous language, that content is provided by the community — not generated or translated by the developer. Technical support for displaying the language correctly is part of the build.
Land acknowledgement — written by the community
The land acknowledgement on the site reflects the community's own words and values. This is not something a developer writes. It is something the developer displays correctly and with appropriate prominence.
What's included
Built for the community.
Managed by anyone.
Every element is chosen because it either fulfils a transparency or communication obligation, improves accessibility for community members, or makes the site easier for a non-technical administrator to maintain. Nothing that requires a developer to update.
The website build
- Custom WordPress theme — appropriate to the organisation's identity and community
- AODA / WCAG 2.0 Level AA compliance — verified before launch, not assumed
- ACF-managed document library — meeting minutes, agendas, bylaws, budgets, financial statements
- Council or leadership directory — updatable by any administrator after elections or appointments
- Emergency alert system — prominent banner, updatable in seconds from the WordPress admin
- Events and community calendar — easy to add and manage without technical skills
- News and announcements section — community notices, road closures, program updates
- Services information pages — waste, roads, permits, recreation, community programs
- Contact and service request forms — for resident and community member inquiries
- Plain-language content throughout — accessible to all community members
- French language structure (where required) — bilingual builds available for designated communities
- For Band Councils: cultural content sections, language display, land acknowledgement
- Mobile-first — built for residents accessing community information on their phones
Ongoing care (monthly)
- Managed WordPress hosting on enterprise infrastructure
- Daily off-site backups with one-click restore
- Security monitoring, firewall, and malware scanning
- Plugin and core updates — researched and tested before applied
- Performance monitoring and Core Web Vitals upkeep
- Uptime monitoring — immediate response if anything goes down
- Content support — document uploads, directory updates, event additions
- Emergency response — fast turnaround if anything breaks
Staff training included — every administrator who will manage the site receives a walkthrough of the document library, directory updates, and emergency alerts. The site is built to be managed by a clerk, not a developer.
How it works
A process designed around
limited staff capacity.
Tell me about your community
Share your organisation type, your community, your current web presence, and what obligations you're struggling to meet. For Band Council projects, this is the beginning of a longer consultation, not a brief.
I propose and scope
Clear scope, timeline, and fixed price — in a format suitable for a council resolution or RFP response where needed. I'll flag funding programs that might cover the cost before you commit.
We build it together
I handle the build. You provide content, documents, and review access. For Band Council projects, this stage involves more consultation and community review time — that's expected and welcome.
Launch — with training
Every staff member who will manage the site is trained before launch. The document library, directory updates, and emergency alerts are demonstrated until everyone is comfortable. Ongoing hosting and support included.
Ready to meet your transparency obligations — and make your community proud?
A quick conversation is all it takes. I'll review what you have, identify the compliance gaps, and come back with a clear picture of what a proper community website would look like — and which funding programs might cover it.
Start a conversationBuilding a website for your community — on your terms.
Band Council projects begin with consultation, not a brief. I'm interested in understanding your community's needs, values, and communication goals before any design decisions are made. If you're exploring what a community website could look like for your Band, I'd like to have that conversation — with no pressure and no assumptions.
Start a conversation