Don’t you love the satisfaction of handing in a completed project to eagerly awaiting clients? How about if that project was really going to make a change, and the client was an organization with a mission you believed in? For me, designing for a cause is up there on the list of supreme web design opportunities, the nirvana of sharing your talent with others on the web. It’s also a wonderful way for newbie designers to get a real project under their belt.
Nevertheless, like any web design project, pro bono work requires a professional relationship between designer and client, including a contract and other guidelines that make the experience profitable for both parties. Today I’d like to publish a few links that discuss the process of designing websites for charities and highlight a contest I stumbled upon while following some of Jason Santa Maria’s tweets. It’s called FullCodePress, and it appears to be a great experiment in design under pressure. Congratulations to all participants!
FullCodePress 2010: International Site in a Day Contest
24 hours of coding, 3 teams comprised of some of the most fabulous web/ux designers & programmers in the world, and 3 charitable organizations that walked home with websites. This competition brought together the best of the design world and the best of causes. What was interesting about it was that you could follow along with the competition in real time, viewing the progress of sites during the 24 hours that they were being built. The judges at FullCodePress 2010 have announced the winners: The Codaroos from Australia. Here are the finished results from all three teams:
Lions Hearing Dogs
The Codaroos
Te Hua Rangatahi Trust
The Code Blacks
Victoria House
Team USA
More about designing for a cause
Before getting into a pro bono project on your own, check out the following resources that deal with the question of doing pro bono work as a web designer and how to make a great website for a nonprofit.
8 tips to design a charity website
Webdesigner Depot shares ideas for making a good charity website.
Improve your portfolio with pro bono design
David Airey talks about pro bono design work, which companies to approach, what to ask, and how it can improve your portfolio.
Rethinking Pro Bono
How Magazine discusses pro bono design work, old and new.
6 tips for doing pro bono web design
Tevi Hirschorn suggests guidelines to get the most out of pro bono design work.
A sample pro bono contract
Some useful advice from Thomas Stephan about how to put together a pro bono contract.
Pro Bono and free services: is it possible to give too much?
Brian K. McDaniel talks about his experiences with pro bono and free services, shedding light on the question above.
