Club websites are rarely planned: someone on the committee knows how to build one, and when that person steps down the site is passed on. The familiar problems follow from that: an events calendar that still shows the winter party in April, team photos with no documented consent, a donation notice that promises a tax receipt the club is not in a position to issue. This article sorts out the four areas where a club website works differently from a company website: events, members, donations, and the handover to the next committee.
Key takeaways
- Germany had around 657,000 civil society organisations in 2022, more than 615,000 of them registered clubs and associations (ZiviZ im Stifterverband 2023). Only about a quarter employ paid staff.
- 57.0 percent of volunteers said in 2019 that they use the internet for their voluntary work (German Survey on Volunteering 2019). That puts the events calendar first in the navigation.
- Portraits may as a rule only be distributed or displayed publicly with the consent of the person shown (Section 22 KunstUrhG). For minors the parents act as legal representatives (Section 1629(1) BGB).
- For donations of up to 300 euros the payment slip or the bank confirmation is enough if the club also prints the tax-privileged purpose and its exemption from corporation tax on a document of its own (Section 50(4) sentence 1 no. 2 EStDV). Membership fees paid to sports clubs, by contrast, are not deductible (Section 10b(1) sentence 8 EStG).
- Sporting events run by a sports club count as a special-purpose operation as long as income including VAT does not exceed 50,000 euros a year (Section 67a(1) AO).
- 26.3 percent of volunteers held a leadership or board position in 2019, down from 36.8 percent in 1999 (German Survey on Volunteering 2019). Register the domain and the access data to the club.
Why a club website works differently
A company writes its website for customers. A club writes for four groups at once: for members looking up dates and training times; for people thinking about joining; for parents who want to know who looks after their children; and for people who would like to donate or come to an event. Four groups, four sets of questions, and one home page cannot serve them all.
Then there is the scale. Germany had around 657,000 civil society organisations in 2022, more than 615,000 of them registered clubs and associations (ZiviZ im Stifterverband 2023). Most of these organisations are carried entirely by the commitment of volunteers, and only about a quarter of them have paid staff (ZiviZ im Stifterverband 2023). Whoever maintains the website is doing it, as a rule, alongside a job and a family.
That shapes every decision about technology and structure. A site whose upkeep needs two evenings of training tends not to be maintained after the next change of committee. What counts is not the range of features but how quickly someone with no prior knowledge can add a date or swap a photo. That is why we build club sites narrow – what belongs in one is set out on our page web design for clubs and associations.
The registered club as a legal form
Events: the calendar carries half the site
A common reason to open a club website is a question about a date: when is the next training session, when is the annual general meeting? 57.0 percent of volunteers said in 2019 that they use the internet for their voluntary work (German Survey on Volunteering 2019); when the question was first asked in 2004 the figure was 39.2 percent. The calendar is therefore not decoration, it is the club's working surface.
A calendar that carries its weight holds four details per entry: date, time, place and the section the date applies to. Leave out the fourth and someone will phone. Past events are not deleted, they move into an annual archive – visible proof that the club is active.
- Date and time are written out as text, not only inside a graphic.
- The place carries a street and a town, so a navigation app can pick up the address.
- Every entry names the section it applies to – otherwise members who were not meant get in touch.
- A contact person appears with their role, not with a private number.
- Past events stay reachable and move into an annual archive.
- Cancellations are recorded on the event itself, not only on the home page.
Die Satzung soll Bestimmungen enthalten: [...] 4. über die Voraussetzungen, unter denen die Mitgliederversammlung zu berufen ist, über die Form der Berufung und über die Beurkundung der Beschlüsse.
The statutes decide how the general meeting is convened. If they say the invitation goes out by post, an entry on the website does not replace it – it supplements it. Until the statutes are changed the events page therefore carries both: the date, and a note about the channel the formal invitation will arrive through.
Technically the events calendar is the place where effort pays back fastest. A form with four fields that produces a finished entry saves more time across a year than any other simplification. What that looks like for dates with a sign-up step is described in online appointment booking for local businesses.
Showing members: photos, names and consent
Little works as quickly on a club website as a picture from the last tournament. Portraits may only be distributed or displayed publicly with the consent of the person shown (Section 22 KunstUrhG). The consent needs no particular form, but it does need to be on record – and in case of doubt the club has to produce it, not the member. Why your own pictures work better than bought ones is set out in real photos instead of stock images.
There is an exception for events: without the consent required under Section 22, pictures of gatherings, processions and similar occasions may be distributed if the people shown took part in them (Section 23(1) no. 3 KunstUrhG). It carries the group picture from the club festival, but typically not the portrait of a single child. And it ends where a legitimate interest of the person shown is harmed (Section 23(2) KunstUrhG).
| Type of picture | What normally carries it | What is needed on top |
|---|---|---|
| Group picture from the club festival | Exception for gatherings and similar occasions (Section 23(1) no. 3 KunstUrhG) | A named contact and a short route to object |
| Team photo with a list of names | Consent from every person shown (Section 22 KunstUrhG) | A separate decision about naming people |
| Portrait of a child | Consent given by the parents as legal representatives (Section 1629(1) BGB) | A written version in the joining form |
| Photo of a board member | Consent from the person shown (Section 22 KunstUrhG); limiting it to the term of office follows from the agreement, not from the provision | A deletion date once the term ends |
| Spectator shot at the touchline | Only with a recognisable link to the event | In case of doubt a softer background |
In practice this comes down to a picture list: for each image the occasion, the date, the legal basis and the person who uploaded it. It costs a quarter of an hour a month and saves the reconstruction work when somebody asks for deletion. Which rules apply to the remaining sources of images is set out in image rights on your website.
Children and young people
Joining: a membership form, not a contact form
A company needs a contact form. A club needs two: one for questions and one for joining. Somebody who wants to join has already decided; sending them to a field headed “Your message” only slows that down. The statutes are meant to contain provisions on members joining and leaving and on whether and which fees members have to pay (Section 58 nos. 1 and 2 BGB) – exactly those details belong next to the form.
What the form asks
Name, address, date of birth, preferred section, fee category. Each additional field reduces the number of forms actually submitted.
What the form states
Fee amount, payment method, notice period and the date from which the membership runs.
What the form separates
Consent to pictures and to being named sits in its own section with its own boxes. It is not a condition of joining.
Who receives the form
A role address for membership administration, not the private address of one person.
What happens next
A confirmation page and a message repeating what was submitted. Without it a share of applicants sends the form twice.
What is reviewed each year
Fee categories, contact people and the consents on file. A fixed date in the club calendar is enough.
The second group are people who help without joining. In 2022, 30 percent of organisations said that they have volunteers who are not members of the organisation; in 2012 the figure was 21 percent (ZiviZ im Stifterverband 2023). So alongside the membership form there is a second, shorter route: a helper list for individual dates, with no fee and no membership. Reaching those helpers by email later needs its own consent – see building an email newsletter that holds up legally.
Two routes, one destination
Donations: what belongs on the page and what does not
A donation page has one job: explain what the money is used for and keep the route to it short. A corporation pursues charitable purposes if its activity is directed at selflessly promoting the general public in material, intellectual or moral terms (Section 52(1) AO). The purpose the club carries in its statutes is therefore also the headline of the donation page.
- The purpose is concrete: not “youth work” but “kit and travel costs for the under-13s”.
- The bank details are written out on the page itself, not only inside an image.
- The note about receipts sits next to them: instead of a donation receipt, the payment slip or the booking confirmation of a bank is sufficient if the donation does not exceed 300 euros and the club prints the tax-privileged purpose, its exemption from corporation tax and whether the payment is a donation or a membership fee on a document of its own (Section 50(4) sentence 1 no. 2 EStDV).
- The difference between a donation and a membership fee is named: membership fees paid to corporations that promote sport are not deductible (Section 10b(1) sentence 8 EStG).
- Funds are used promptly, that is at the latest in the two calendar or business years following receipt; this obligation does not apply to corporations with annual income of no more than 100,000 euros (Section 55(1) no. 5 AO).
- The page does not promise a donation receipt for amounts the club cannot confirm.
<section class="donation">
<h2>{{ purpose }}</h2>
<p class="use">{{ use_short }}</p>
<dl class="account">
<dt>Recipient</dt><dd>{{ club_name }}</dd>
<dt>IBAN</dt><dd>{{ iban }}</dd>
<dt>Reference</dt><dd>{{ purpose_short }}</dd>
</dl>
<p class="receipt">
Up to 300 euros the payment slip is sufficient together with our
printed note on purpose and tax exemption
(Section 50(4) sentence 1 no. 2 EStDV).
Above that we issue a donation receipt.
</p>
</section>A club that sells entry fees, tickets or club clothing through its website leaves the territory of the pure donation. Sporting events run by a sports club are a special-purpose operation if income including VAT does not exceed 50,000 euros in total per year; the sale of food and drink and advertising are expressly not part of it (Section 67a(1) AO). The same holds here as in trust signals on your website: money moves more readily when origin and use are easy to follow.
A second threshold sits next to it: if income including VAT from commercial business operations that are not special-purpose operations does not exceed 50,000 euros in total per year, the tax bases attributable to those operations are not subject to corporation tax or trade tax (Section 64(3) AO). For the website that means counting what it takes in and reporting the figures to whoever keeps the books.
Sections: a structure that mirrors the club
A club with six sections has six editorial teams, and each would like its page to look different. Allow that and after two years you have six websites under one address. Forbid it and the sections go back to distributing their dates in a messaging group. The workable answer sits in between: a fixed template per section with the same header, navigation and event list.
Besonders viele Menschen, 13,5 Prozent der Bevölkerung, engagieren sich im Bereich Sport und Bewegung (Abbildung 4-1).
In 2019, 39.7 percent of people aged 14 and over in Germany were doing voluntary work (German Survey on Volunteering 2019). It explains why so many club websites come from sport and why their structure becomes the model for others. A music society, a volunteer organisation or a support association has the same four areas, only with different words: training times become rehearsal dates, the team becomes the register, the tournament becomes the concert.
For the navigation this produces a simple rule: sections are one level, not two. Anyone who needs a third level actually has a separate area – the youth section, say, with its own dates, its own contact person and its own approach to pictures. Clubs offering health-related activities such as rehabilitation or cardiac sport also move within the advertising rules for the healing professions; the limits are set out in medical practice websites and advertising law.
Mandatory details and consent
A club also runs a website that falls under the German Digital Services Act as soon as it is offered on a commercial basis. Service providers must keep certain information permanently available, easily recognisable and directly accessible, for digital services offered commercially and usually against payment (Section 5(1) DDG). That includes, among other things, the register in which the provider is entered and the corresponding register number (Section 5(1) no. 4 DDG).
For a registered club that is the register of associations at the competent local court (Section 21 BGB) together with its number, plus the board as legal representative (Section 26(1) BGB). Experience says this is the entry that gets updated last after a change of committee. What a complete set of mandatory details looks like is set out in the legal notice: mandatory details under the DDG.
Alongside the mandatory details sits consent to data processing: maps, embedded videos and visitor statistics load only after the visitor has decided, and the privacy notice names what the club itself processes. For club sites the narrow route is worth it: an address with a link instead of an embedded map. What to watch out for is set out in cookie banners under the GDPR.
The handover to the next committee
The point at which club websites stall is rarely the technology. It is the change of office. In 1999, 36.8 percent of volunteers held a leadership or board position; in 2019 the figure was 26.3 percent (German Survey on Volunteering 2019). Proportionally fewer people take on an office – so taking one over should need as little training as possible.
- Domain in the club's name: the registrant is the club with its address, not a member with their home address.
- Access data in one list: domain administration, hosting, mailboxes, editing accounts – one role and one password per account.
- Editing rights by role: whoever maintains the calendar needs no access to the templates. After a change of office an account is deactivated.
- One page of operating instructions: where things are kept, who to call, what running the site costs per year. One page, not twenty.
- One handover appointment with both committees: an hour together at the screen, before the outgoing committee leaves office.
Those five points separate a website that survives a change of committee from one that shows last year's programme afterwards. Who owns the domain and the access data, and how to check it in ten minutes, is set out in who owns my website?.
The security part of the handover
What this means for your club
The four areas can be tackled in an order that shows results quickly: the events calendar first, because it saves the most follow-up questions; then the membership form; then the donation page, because it carries the statements you should not be guessing at; the handover last, because it makes everything before it durable.
Events calendar
An input mask with four fields, an annual archive and one view per section, maintained by the club itself.
Membership form
A form with fee categories, separate consent and a confirmation page, delivered to a role address.
Donation page
Purpose, bank details and the notes on receipts and membership fees, written along the rules that apply.
Picture register
A list of published images with occasion, date and legal basis, plus a short route to deletion.
Access register
Domain in the club's name, accounts by role, one page of operating instructions for the next committee.
Ongoing upkeep
Updates, backups and one fixed date a year for details, contact people and consents.
For clubs a monthly fee often works out better than a one-off investment, because the budget is planned in annual slices and a change of committee does not require a fresh resolution. How that is structured is on our page website subscription; the ongoing care is described on the page maintenance.
Die meisten dieser Organisationen werden ausschließlich vom Engagement freiwillig engagierter Bürgerinnen und Bürger getragen, nur etwa ein Viertel der Organisationen hat bezahlte Beschäftigte.
That is the real measure of a club website: not the number of features, but whether somebody two years from now can add a date, swap a photo and understand the donation notice without being trained first. We are happy to look at what is missing in your club – an overview is on the page services.
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