The redirect map: never let a link in a grant report die

A nonprofit’s old URLs are scattered across places it cannot edit: grant reports already submitted, printed flyers, a funder’s internal notes, a partner’s newsletter from two years ago, a QR code on a banner in somebody’s closet. When the website moves and those links break, the organization looks careless to exactly the people it most needs to trust it. The fix is cheap and should be the first thing you build, not the last.

What a redirect map is

A single file that says, for every old address, where it should go now:

{
  "/our-programs":        "/security/careers/",
  "/donate-today":        "/donate/",
  "/blog/summer-camp-2025": "/testimonials/seafarers-yacht-club/"
}

Ours has fifty-seven lines. The build compiles the file into the small function that runs at the edge of the content delivery network, so every old address answers with a permanent redirect (an HTTP 301) to the new page before any file is even looked up. Search engines treat a 301 as “this page moved,” and they carry the old page’s reputation to the new one. Visitors see nothing except the right page.

How to gather the old URLs

1. The old platform’s page list. Export it or copy it by hand. Include pages you plan to delete; those need redirects most.
2. Your own documents. Search your grant reports, decks, and newsletters for your domain name. Every hit is a URL someone else may still have.
3. Search engine results. Search site:yourdomain.org and page through the results. These are the addresses the public actually reaches.
4. The server log or analytics, if you have either. Anything with traffic in the last year goes on the list.
5. Old flyers and QR codes. Ask the person who makes them.

Write each one down exactly as it appears, including capitalization and trailing slashes. The map should tolerate both forms; ours strips a trailing slash before looking up the address.

How to choose the destination

For each old address pick the one new page that best answers the reason someone clicked the old link. A blog post about a past event goes to the case study or the events page, not the home page. A deleted program page goes to the nearest living program, with a sentence on that page acknowledging the change if the program really ended. The home page is the destination of last resort; a redirect there tells the visitor “we lost it.”

Rules we follow

• Every destination must end with a slash and must be a page that exists. The build checks both and refuses to publish otherwise.
• Never chain redirects. If A once went to B and B now goes to C, point A straight at C.
• Keep the map in the repository next to the content, under version control, so a change is a one-line edit anyone can review.
• After cutover, watch for 404s for a month and add a line for each one that was a real link rather than a bot guessing.

Why it matters more for nonprofits than for companies

A company can buy its way out of a broken link with advertising. A nonprofit’s reach is made of relationships and references, most of them written down somewhere by someone else. The redirect map is how you keep faith with every one of those references at once, for the cost of an afternoon and one file.