Nonprofits do important work, but they often have trouble catching people’s attention. There are so many organizations out there and so many issues to care about. How can a nonprofit attract donors when people have a sea of options to choose from? Good graphic design can set an organization apart. Whether it’s a sleek, beautiful website, an animated explainer video, or an accessible infographic, graphic design bridges the communication gap between a nonprofit and its target audience. Here are ten graphic design tools that nonprofits can use to improve their fundraising reach:
Pexels
Unless a nonprofit happens to have a skilled photographer on staff or the money to contract one, they need to get photos and images from somewhere. It can be tempting to try and take photos yourself – and it’s easier than ever thanks to smartphones with cameras – but that takes a lot of time that could be spent on other projects. Pexels is a great website if you need high-quality stock photos available through the Creative Commons Zero license. These photos can be copied, modified, and distributed for free. That includes commercial use, too. The great thing about this freedom is you can crop out things you don’t (like a person’s face), turn a photo black-and-white, or change the photo in another way to better fit your nonprofit’s branding. With over 3.2 million stock images, you should have little trouble finding a photo that fits your needs. Using search terms like “nonprofit,” “human rights,” “refugee,” “hunger,” and “poverty” bring up hundreds of photos. Pexels will suggest related terms if you can’t quite find what you want in the current search.
Animaker
If you need an explainer video or another type of animated clip, Animaker offers a variety of options for video newbies and professionals. They’ve worked with brands like Amazon and Unilever, so rest assured that these videos are high-quality. There are 1000+ templates to choose from, though you can also build your own video with a simple drag-and-drop editor, a character creator, and millions of stock videos and images. You can make GIFs and short videos, too. Cool features include auto lip-sync, so your characters’ lips move with the voiceover you add, and Smart Move, which adds complex moving animations with a click. There’s a free plan, though it doesn’t offer access to much storage or many of the features. There are four paid plans starting at $10 a month.
WordSwag
Looking for a simple way to add text overlay on your photos? WordSwag is only $3.99 on the App Store and Google Play, though you can use it for free, too. You don’t get access to the premium features, however, so it’s probably worth paying for. With the Pro plan, you can add your logo and download high-resolution images for printing. There are tons of available fonts and over 1 million free backgrounds from Pixabay that make your words pop. Other features include trendy frames, layouts, 22 image filters, and effects like gold foil, stamped, and watercolor. You can take or upload your own photos if none of the app’s backgrounds work for your particular text.
Adobe Spark
If you have experience with Photoshop or Illustrator and want an alternative, Adobe Spark is pretty close. It contains three design apps: Spark Page, Spark Post, and Spark Video. Nonprofits can create all their graphic designs in this online and mobile app. If you use the free plan, you can design a lot, though it will have the Adobe Spark watermark on your saved designs. You also get more features on the paid plans, such as access to Adobe’s complete library of premium templates and fonts and the ability to share editing. Adobe does offer pricing discounts for nonprofits. You can get Spark as a standalone app or as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud.
BeFunky
BeFunky is a photo editor and collage maker, but it also offers templates for the increasingly popular infographic. These images present information in a digestible, appealing way that’s perfect for the digital age where attention spans are short. Infographics are also very useful when presenting information to employees, boards, and other in-organization groups. Using the Infographic Maker, you can choose templates or use the graphic designer to start from scratch. Simple features like the ability to upload multiple photos simultaneously cut down on editing time. If you’re okay with using the free plan (which limits access to certain features), you don’t need to create an account. With BeFunky Plus (which costs $4.99 if you pay for a year or $8.99 per month), you can remove objects from photos, remove image backgrounds, add cartoon and painting filters to photos, and reshape objects.
Pixlr
As a Photoshop-like app, Pixlr follows in the same vein as Adobe Spark. It offers similar features like templates, filtered images, photo editors, and text overlay. It has fewer features than Photoshop, which helps make it a bit more accessible for those with little to no experience. Because it’s online, you don’t need to download any software, though there is a Pixlr Desktop editing app for offline editing available to subscribers. It runs on PC and MAC. If you’re new to editing, start with Pixlr X. It offers sleek design templates, ready-made collage layouts, and accessible tools, so you can edit when you need to work quickly. Pixlr E offers more of a classic photo-editing experience, like what you would see from Photoshop. It’s great for more detailed work and includes features like a Fill and Gradient tool, Sponge/Color tool, an advanced color picker, more filters, and more adjustments. AI powers both editors, so working is more intuitive. With the free plan, you get access to Pixlr X and E and the basic editing tools. With Pixlr Premium ($4.90/month) or the Pixlr Creative Pack ($14.99), you get full access to the app’s features, including templates, better image resolution, AI tools, and so on.
Canva
Canva is a great tool because of the variety of its templates. It’s extremely easy to create just about anything, including Facebook posts, videos, presentations, posters, logos, and more. Everything within a template can be edited, too, so it’s simple to tweak every aspect of a design to fit your goals. With Text Animations, you can apply movement to your words. Textures like newspaper, fabric, and patterns accentuate a photo. Stickers and speech bubbles make designs fun and unique. Canva’s free plan gets you access to pretty much everything on the editing side (minus some premium templates, fonts, and images), though with the paid plans, you get things like social scheduling, team templates, and brand management. Registered nonprofits get Canva Pro for free. Useful features include Canva Presentations, which lets you run live lessons and offer your audience a 6-digit code. With this code, they can join canva.live and send questions and comments as you present.
Crello
Crello is similar to Canva. It’s an online editing tool for photos, animations, videos, and more for websites, print, and social media. It has a similar look to Canva with easy-to-use design templates like Instagram posts, posters, and square videos. There are 50,000 templates you can customize to your liking, over 650,000 premium images from Lightfield Productions, 32,000 full HD video clips and animations, and an editor for photos and video. You can browse audio clips and stock images, convert videos to gifs, and more. Registered nonprofits can apply for access (for up to 10 people) to Crello Pro for free! With this plan, you unlock unlimited downloads and help online with priority support. You’re also able to invite team members to design with you and remove backgrounds from images.
Promo
If your nonprofit wants to move into video creation, Promo is a great platform to consider. It offers features like royalty-free music, a library of 15+ million video clips, thousands of templates, and a video editor. Everything is customizable, so experiment with adding and trimming clips, uploading your own images and clips, adding your own music, tweaking fonts, and so on. Promo also offers a social media calendar, an image resizer, and a video-to-GIF maker. If you stick to the basic plan (which is free to qualifying NGOs), you’ll get access to 100 templates, unlimited video downloads, 36 premium assets a year, and no watermark. If you want to use the social media calendar and add your own watermark, you’ll need to get either the Annual Standard or the Annual Pro plan.
Desygner
Not confident in your designing skills? Desygner is designed for “non-designers.” It has thousands of templates for designs like social media cover photos, ads, presentations, business cards, flyers, posters, social media posts, invitations, and more. If you don’t love every part of the template, you can tweak the text, colors, icons, and any images. You can also start from scratch if you don’t like any of the templates. Once you’re done, you can save designs for printing in file types like png, jgp, and pdf. You can share directly to social media and other apps, too. Desygner is free to use, but there’s a Pro Plus plan that includes almost 100 million Shutterstock images, unlimited PDF imports, the ability to collaborate with coworkers, and a built-in social media scheduler on the iOS and Android apps.
