The County Website Program
for Democratic Party Counties in Iowa
About half of Iowa’s county Democratic parties and many progressive organizations have no website. These organizations rely entirely on Facebook or other social media—leaving their organizing at the mercy of algorithms and platform decisions.
For years we sought a functional website but found the process complicated — we’d get to a certain level and fail to launch. The Activate Iowa program made it simple and consistent with party guidelines, and it includes everything a county party needs to succeed. The cost was well within budget and even included email addresses with our domain. Now we can focus on winning elections!
What’s Included for $350 a year:
- Domain registration and privacy protection
- 3 dedicated email accounts — choose addresses like chair@yourcounty.org
- Professional WordPress hosting on optimized servers
- Custom website design using drag-and-drop Divi theme
- Professional event calendar
- Logo and image optimization
- Integration with Let’s Vote and Let’s Register downloads
- Training via Zoom for your volunteers
- Ongoing support from the Activate Iowa team
Timeline: 15-30 days from payment to launch
WHAT ACTIVATE IOWA WILL DO FOR YOU:
Domain name registration
- Your domain name will be registered under the Activate Iowa account at NameCheap.
Website hosting & customization
- Your website will be hosted on Flywheel, a premium WordPress hosting service, under the Activate Iowa account.
- Logo and image optimization provided.
- Your WordPress theme will be Divi, a premium drag-and-drop WordPress theme and visual page builder.
- Plugin installation provided.
- A professional event calendar provided.
- Credentials for your website hosting provided.
- As an all-volunteer team, we can only support websites hosted on our platform to keep things simple and affordable.
Training & Support
- Training in using Divi, the Calendar system and image implementation for easy management of the website.
- If you ever move your website to another host, you’re free to do so.
Ongoing Services
- Ongoing image optimization for the photos you may want to add, as needed.
- Rescue support if something goes wrong.
- You will be able to do all the simple management and for more difficult things, we will be there for you.
- Ability to easily offer voters downloadable “Let’s Register” and “Let’s Vote” PDF voter guides.
- Ability to share resources among counties and across the state.
3 Dedicated Email Accounts:
- You can choose three addresses like chair@yourcountydems.org, accessible online or on your desktop.
Marketing Email Support:
- If you are interested in Marketing Email services (Mailchimp, MailerLite etc.), a member of our team will help you:
- Choose the email service that will best meet your needs and help you set up your subscription.
- Note: the cost of the service is covered by the county and is not part of the annual fee paid to Activate Iowa.
- Learn how to use the service.