The Fractional Designer
Ongoing creative support, without another full-time hire.
graphic design
A package that aids with every communications touchpoint.
Your team already has plenty of ideas. The challenge is finding the time (and the capacity) to actually bring them to life.
The Fractional Designer gives nonprofits reliable, monthly graphic design support. Whether you need a few months of dedicated design help for an upcoming event or campaign, or you want to refresh your organization's existing materials, or you could simply use an extra creative hand throughout the year. This flexible service is designed to work around your team's changing needs.
there’s a lot to communicate to your audience, but…
Does keeping up with design feel like another full-time job?
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Your comms person is doing everything.
Writing emails, managing social media, updating the website, planning campaigns, coordinating events—and somehow designing all the graphics, too.
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Branding feels a little all over the place
Canva templates and existing materials help keep things moving, but they don't always stand out or feel like they belong to the same organization. Over time, your visual identity starts to feel inconsistent.
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Good ideas sit on the back burner.
You know what you could be creating, but urgent priorities keep pushing those projects down the list. Campaign ideas, creative improvements, and long-overdue updates never seem to get the attention they deserve.
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Your materials don’t reflect your organization.
Your nonprofit has grown, but presentations, reports, campaign graphics, and other materials haven’t always grown with it.
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You're constantly chasing freelancers
Finding someone, explaining the project, getting a quote, onboarding them, waiting for availability...and then doing it all over again next month.
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Hiring a designer doesn’t make sense.
You need professional creative support regularly—but not enough to justify another salary, benefits, software, and full-time position.
The fractional designer
Design support that actually becomes part of your team.
There’s a big gap between doing everything yourself and hiring another employee.
That’s where the Fractional Designer fits. Instead of finding a new freelancer every time something needs to be designed, you get consistent access to a creative partner who learns your brand, understands your organization, and becomes familiar with how your team works.
Over time, there’s less explaining, less starting over, and a whole lot less creative work sitting on your plate.
Think of us as your design department—just the fraction you actually need.
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This package starts with a 3-month minimum. After 3 months, you can cancel at any time.
working with a dedicated designer
One designer. Plenty of possibilities.
Your organization's creative needs change throughout the year. The Fractional Designer gives you flexible support for the campaigns, communications, and everyday projects that keep your mission moving forward.
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Fundraising & Campaigns
Appeal letters, campaign graphics, sponsorship packets, and donor communications.
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Event Materials
Invitations, signage, programs, sponsor recognition, and event graphics.
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Reports & Publications
Annual reports, impact reports, newsletters, brochures, and one-pagers.
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Digital Graphics
Social media content, digital ads, email graphics, and website assets.
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Presentations & Outreach
Slide decks, informational handouts, partner materials, and outreach collateral.
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Brand Consistency
Updated templates, refreshed materials, and a cohesive visual presence across your organization.
Why fractional?
Consistency gets better when your designer knows you.
One-off freelancers can be perfect for one-off projects. But when design is something your organization needs every month, constantly onboarding new creatives creates its own workload.
With an ongoing partnership, we learn how your team communicates, what your leadership likes, how your fundraising campaigns work, which brand rules matter, and where things tend to get stuck.
The result isn’t just better design. It’s less work for your team.
So what’s the process?
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01
Get Acquainted
We start by learning your organization, your brand, your existing materials, and how design requests typically flow through your team.
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02
Set Your Monthly Priorities
We’ll meet at the beginning of each month to outline goals and projects. We’ll clarify the scope, priorities and timeline before jumping into the work.
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03
Keep the Creative Moving
With your priorities in place, we'll get to work. As we get to know your organization, collaboration becomes easier, requests become simpler, and your creative stays consistent across everything you do.
Strategy…then development
If the website direction isn’t right, get a full refund.
Before we build a single page, we work with your team to clarify the audience, messaging, site structure, and priorities.
That means you’ll have a clear sitemap and direction before the project moves into full design—so we’re not spending weeks polishing the wrong solution. We’d rather solve the hard thinking up front than surprise you with a beautiful website that doesn’t actually work for your organization.
Frequently Asked Questions
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To keep things moving, we typically ask for a 1-hour meeting every other week. These meetings give us time to share insights, align on copy and messaging, review progress, and work through revisions together.
We’ll handle the heavy lifting between meetings, but timely feedback from your team helps us keep the project on schedule.
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We typically work within Squarespace and Wix as they are great options for nonprofits who just need an informative website for their clients and supporters. We also build on WordPress—usually utilizing user-friendly builders like Elementor and Divi.
If all of this sounds unfamiliar or you’re not sure what the best option for your team is, we’ll walk you through the pros and cons of each platform and help you make an informed decision that will support the organization as it grows.
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Absolutely not. We know there are few things more daunting than staring at a blank document titled “Website Copy.”
We’ll create the initial drafts based on your current materials, our research, the Roadmap Strategy Session, and the site wireframe. From there, your team has a strong starting point to refine the language so it accurately reflects your organization’s voice, culture, and expertise.
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That’s where we come in. For Oregon-based website clients, the Hero Website includes a 1-hour photography session to create fresh visuals for the new site.
Depending on your organization, we might photograph your staff at work, programs in action, facilities, environmental portraits, or—with the appropriate permission—the people you serve. We’ll also incorporate strong images from your existing library wherever they make sense.
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SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization—essentially, making it easier for search engines like Google to understand your website and show it to the right people.
We’re not promising to magically put you at the top of Google, but we will make sure the site launches with a solid foundation. That includes an SEO-friendly site structure, image alt text, important redirects from your old site, and connecting the new site to Google Search Console.
If your organization doesn’t already have a Google Business Profile, we’ll also show you how to get one set up.
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Usually, yes. The Hero Website includes one primary integration, which is often a donor platform such as Bloomerang, Givebutter, Donorbox, DonorView, or Little Green Light.
We can also connect tools like newsletter sign-ups, Calendly, Google Calendar, forms, and other common plugins as needed. We’ll talk through your existing systems during the Roadmap Session so we can plan around the tools your team already relies on.
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That’s the goal. We build on Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress with Elementor specifically because they give nonprofit teams practical ways to manage everyday updates without calling a developer every time something changes.
Before launch, we’ll train your staff on the basics—editing text, changing images, adding events or posts, and other common updates. Then we’ll reconnect 30 days after launch to address any issues and revisit training if something still feels unclear.
The Hero Website
an asset for your communications strategy.
The Hero Website is a focused 2–3 month engagement for nonprofits that have outgrown their current site and are ready for something clearer, more modern, and easier to manage.
We handle the strategy, structure, copywriting, design, build, photography, integration, SEO setup, launch, and training. That way, your team doesn’t have to coordinate five different vendors or spend countless hours troubleshooting just to get a better website up and running.
Starting at $8,500
Built on Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress • Completed in about 120 days • Website strategy approved before development—or your money back.