Storytelling + Design for Nonprofits & Foundations
Your mission is too important to communicate one fire drill at a time.
In 10 weeks, we give you a complete communications and messaging system: a full year of design assets and storytelling framework, built with a partner who knows social-impact work from the inside.
Free · 30 minutes · With Founder, Cate Croft
Trusted by
Running communications for a mission-driven org means carrying a lot at once.
➜ You're speaking to funders, donors, and the community you serve all at once, and each one needs to hear it differently.
➜ You're expected to do a lot with a little, and prove every dollar moved the mission, even as funding feels less certain.
➜ You need the board and ED to buy in before you can move.
➜ It feels impossible to stand out or differentiate your org. You have amazing impact & stories, but they don’t translate into your communications.
➜ You’re in it for the mission, not to be the in-house designer/copywriter/social media expert. You're holding it together piecemeal while running on empty.
Free · 30 minutes · With Founder, Cate Croft
"Because of Cate's breadth of experience, you aren't just getting a designer, you are getting a thought partner.
Cate is always conscious of the cultural nuance that goes into our work, without making it look stereotypical. Your design will be the strongest and most cohesive it has ever been."
JoAnna Cintrón, Latino Community Foundation of Colorado
We replace the overwhelm by helping you craft a powerful story and giving you a system to scale it across every audience and platform.
How it works:
Your Story, Clarified
Build Your Narrative Foundation
In a crowded nonprofit landscape, storytelling with clarity and soul aren’t nice-to-haves, they’re your edge. We distill what makes your work essential and transform it into powerful messaging that moves people to give.
Weeks 1-3
01
Through this process, we create:
Your brand narrative ➜ Your core story, plus tailored versions for every audience you answer to: the funders who back outcomes, the donors who give from the heart, the community you serve. Messages that move very different stakeholders.
Your messaging system ➜ Signature statements, message pillars, a library of ready-to-use one-liners and calls to action, and the metaphors that make your work unforgettable. Plug + play.
Your voice guide ➜ How you sound, the words you use, and the words you never use. The cultural nuance and terminology guardrails that keep your communications respectful, consistent, and unmistakably yours.
Your Human-Centered AI System ➜ A custom toolkit, brand-trained prompts, and your own Claude Skills library, all built on the voice guide above. We teach the AI your values and your language before it writes a word, so it can only sound like you at your most careful and human. You get the speed of AI without tone-deaf, generic, or off-brand content.
Bottom line: When resources are tight, clarity wins. Donors give to what they trust, and trust starts with a message they understand and feel (and doesn’t sound like generic ai).
Your Impact, Visualized
Campaign Design & Storytelling Visuals
Data alone doesn’t drive action—stories do. In this phase, we translate your outcomes into visual narratives that build trust, inspire generosity, and rally people to your cause.
Weeks 3-7
02
In this stage, we will craft:
Annual Impact Report ➜ A bold, data-backed story of your impact. Designed to turn your impact into all-year tools. It’s perfect for board decks, donor meetings, and new partnership pitches.
Event Brand Package ➜ A striking event identity and polished asset suite that transforms your gathering into a movement-building moment—boosting registrations and attracting aligned sponsors.
Donor Campaign Concept + Promo Kit ➜ Messaging + visuals built to spark generosity. We craft a year-end giving campaign that blends heart + strategy to boost both response rates and gift size.
BONUS! Each deliverable includes an Action Toolkit to mobilize your board and advocates. We equip them with ready-to-use email drafts, social posts, and talking points so they know exactly how to share your story and bring others into the work (and they get to look good doing it!).
Why this matters (especially now): In uncertain times, donors get choosy. Organizations that show their impact—clearly, visually, and emotionally—earn trust. And trust is what sustains giving, even when budgets are tight.
Your Message, Multiplied
Social & Email Template Suite
Your team is already doing a lot with a little. We help you do it smarter—by transforming your clarified strategy into a cohesive content system that amplifies your voice, without straining your capacity.
Weeks 6-9
03
At this step, we build a visual ecosystem that includes:
Social Media Graphics Templates ➜ A suite of customizable, goal-driven templates for social, email, and campaigns. All designed to keep your brand consistent and your team out of Canva purgatory.
Email Template Suite ➜ Eye-catching, strategy-aligned templates made to convert. Plug-and-play designs that help you nurture donors, rally advocates, and drive action without the typical design headaches
Bottom line: When resources are tight, efficiency isn’t a nice-to-have. This system shaves hours off your weekly content creation time, so your team can stay focused on what actually moves the mission.
Your Team, Empowered
Training, Support, Implementation
Even the best tools fall flat without the know-how to use them. We make sure your team feels confident, equipped, and energized to put everything we’ve built into action—long after our work together wraps.
Week 10 + Beyond
04
You’ll walk away with:
In-Depth Training ➜ Clear walkthroughs, step-by-step guides, and tutorial videos to make adoption easy. No one’s left guessing and your brand stays strong from day one.
Design Mentorship ➜ One month of follow-up support with expert eyes on your work: offering feedback, guidance, and a second creative brain as your team rolls things out.
Bottom line: This phase turns strategy into sustainability. Your team gets the tools and the confidence to stay consistent, adapt with ease, and keep building trust that fuels long-term support.
The Kin Collective is
Cate Croft
Morning person. Typography nerd. Hostess and gatherer. For 18+ years, she has helped nonprofits and foundations turn their work into stories and visuals that win support and funding.
Denver-based and hands-on with every client, Cate brings art and strategy together so social-impact organizations can look as bold as the change they're making.
She believes design gives human stories form, adds soul, and sparks enduring change, which is why she's spent her career alongside the people building a more just world. That conviction shows up at home, too. Cate is also co-founder of The Equal House, helping couples share the load and build more equity in their own relationships.
Packages
Investment
Most orgs weigh our packages against a part-time comms hire, roughly $35–50k a year and gone the day they leave, or a year of one-off projects with a freelancer. Each package is designed to solve your comms needs now and give you a system you can use for years.
Foundation
$3,500
The strategic storytelling and AI system.
Best for teams that already have design handled and need their story clarified and multiplied.
Your brand narrative, with a version for every audience
Messaging system: pillars, signature statements, metaphors, and ready-to-use lines
Voice guide with cultural and terminology guardrails
Brand-trained AI system of prompts and skills that tell powerful, human stories and never sound like AI
*Foundation is the storytelling strategy layer. Design, templates, and campaigns begin in Core Package.
MOST POPULAR
Core System
$9,500
The story, plus assets and tools to put it to work.
Best for lean teams with little design capacity who need the whole system built and running.
Everything in Foundation, plus:
Annual impact report + promotional graphics
One campaign of your choice: event brand suite or year-end giving campaign
25–30 social templates designed to your goals
2 email templates built to convert
Team training tutorials and guides to hand off the system
Complete System
$12,500
The entire system plus expanded assets to rally your people.
Best for orgs wanting to check all the boxes on comms in 10 weeks.
Everything in Core, plus:
Brand audit: a gap analysis of where your current messaging and design fall short
Both campaigns instead of one: event brand suite and year-end fundraiser
Action toolkits for your board and advocates
40–50 social templates and 3–4 email templates (the full suite)
30 days of mentorship as you roll it out
Book a Call
We'll look at where your messaging and design stand now and what's getting left on the table. You'll leave with a clear read on your biggest storytelling gap, whether or not we work together. No prep, no pitch.
Free · 30 minutes · With Founder, Cate Croft