01

groundwork

blurstate groundwork

we build websites
for porirua community
organisations. free.

If your organisation does good work in Porirua and your website doesn't show it — or you don't have one at all — we'll build you one properly, at no cost, and hand you the keys.

applysee what you get
intakeopen — applications close 31 August 2026cost$0 to build, $0 to runareaporirua · mana · tawa · kāpiti
02

what you get

a real website.
not a favour.

up to five pages

Usually home, about, what you do, contact, and one more that earns its place — news, events, or how to get help.

built for phones first

Most people will find you on a phone. The site is designed for that screen before the desktop one, and tested on a real device before it launches.

a login to update it yourself

Change your hours, post a notice, add an event. No developer, no waiting, and no invoice for fixing a typo.

findable on google

Real page titles, descriptions and structured data, so someone searching for what you do in Porirua actually lands on you.

set up in your name

Domain and hosting registered to your organisation, on accounts your people control — not ours.

a handover you can follow

One page of plain-English instructions, a ten-minute screen recording, and thirty days of support after launch.

03

what it costs

the honest
numbers.

Free work goes wrong when nobody says who pays for what. So here it is, before you apply.

design, build and launch

$0

The entire build is free. There is no invoice at the end and nothing to sign up for.

your domain name

~$30 / year

Registered in your organisation's name and paid by you, because owning your own address matters more than saving thirty dollars.

hosting

$0

Your own free hosting account. Free permanently at the traffic a community organisation gets.

after launch

$0

Thirty days of support included. After that the site is yours and it keeps running whether or not we ever speak again.

Everything is registered in your organisation's name from day one. We're added as a collaborator to build it and you can remove us the day it launches. You are never locked in to us, and nothing switches off if we stop talking.

04

who it's for

who we can
work with.

you're eligible if
  • A registered charity, incorporated society, trust, church, marae, sports club, or a community group with a bank account.
  • Serving people in Porirua, Mana, Tawa or on the Kāpiti Coast.
  • Doing work that's open to the public — not a private business, a political campaign, or a members-only club.
  • Has someone who can make a decision and sign things off without waiting on a quarterly board meeting.
what we ask in return
  • Your text, logo and photos before the build starts. No content, no start date — this is the one thing that sinks free projects.
  • Two rounds of changes, so we finish rather than circle.
  • A small "built by blurstate groundwork" line in the footer.
  • Permission to write up what we built, once it's live.
05

how it works

five steps.
two weeks of build.

01

apply

Five minutes on the form below. There's no proposal to write and no forms to print.

02

a call

Twenty minutes, on the phone or in person. What you do, who needs to find you, and what isn't working now.

03

content pack

You send words, logo and photos. We send a checklist first so nothing has to be guessed at.

04

build

Two weeks from the day your content lands. You see it and sign it off before anyone else does.

05

handover

Live on your domain, on your accounts. Written docs, a walkthrough recording, and thirty days of support.

06

partners

the first intake
is open.

Groundwork is new. We're taking applications for the first round of builds now, and we'd rather show you nothing than show you a logo we haven't earned — so this space stays empty until there's a finished site to put in it.

If you want to see how we build, the studio's commercial work is in the playground. Same standard, same attention. The only difference is the invoice.

applications close 31 August 2026

07

questions

the questions
worth asking.

01

is it actually free?

Yes. There's no invoice at the end, no trial that converts, and no upsell waiting behind it. You pay for your own domain name — about $30 a year — because it needs to be registered to your organisation rather than to us. Everything else costs nothing.

02

what's the catch?

We're building a portfolio and we'd rather build it on work that's actually useful. In exchange we ask for three things: your content on time, a small credit in the footer, and permission to write about the project once it's live. That's the whole deal.

03

who owns the site when it's finished?

You do — the domain, the hosting account, the content and the code. Everything is registered in your organisation's name from day one, not ours. We're added as a collaborator during the build, and you can remove us the day it launches.

04

what happens when you leave for university?

Fair question, and the honest answer is that the whole thing is designed around it. Your site doesn't run on our server or depend on us paying a bill — it sits on your own hosting account, on your own domain, and it keeps working if we never speak again. Support is thirty days after launch. After that you can still email and we'll usually help, but nothing breaks if we don't.

05

how long does it take?

Two weeks from the day your content arrives — not from the day you apply. Gathering the content is almost always the slow part, so we send a checklist up front to make it as painless as possible.

06

what do we need to give you?

Words describing what you do, your logo in the best quality you have, and some photos. If your logo only exists as a fuzzy JPEG from 2011, or you have no photos at all, say so on the form — both are solvable and neither is a reason not to apply.

07

do we have to be a registered charity?

No. Incorporated societies, trusts, churches, marae, sports clubs and unincorporated community groups are all eligible. The test is whether your work is open to the public, not what paperwork you've filed.

08

we already have a website. is it worth applying?

Often, yes. A site that takes ten seconds to load on a phone, hides your opening hours, or throws a security warning before anyone sees it is doing more damage than no site at all. Apply anyway and we'll tell you honestly whether a rebuild is worth it — and if a couple of small fixes would do instead, we'll tell you what they are for free.

08

apply

tell us about
your organisation.

groundwork application

about five minutes

what kind of organisation are you?

we reply within two business days. prefer email? write to hello@blurstate.com.