Rally Around Us

Rally Around Us

Role: Lead Product & Marketing Designer (Freelance/Contract) Location: Massachusetts (Remote) Duration: 2019 – 2020

Executive Summary

Contracted to serve as the solo designer for an early-stage Massachusetts startup. The mission was to democratize fundraising for local sports teams by creating an intuitive, high-conversion platform that simplified the "ask" for coaches and the "give" for donors.

Key Contributions & Milestones

• Core Product Interface: Designed the primary fundraising page template, ensuring a mobile-first approach that allowed donors to contribute in under 60 seconds — a critical requirement for social-media-driven fundraising.
• Marketing Site Architecture: Designed the top-of-funnel marketing website to communicate the value proposition to two distinct audiences: Team Leads (Coaches/Parents) and individual Donors.
• Visual Trust-Building: Developed a clean, professional aesthetic to move the brand away from the "cluttered" look of traditional donation sites, focusing instead on high-quality imagery of local athletes and transparent progress bars.
• UX for Social Proof: Integrated features like live "donor walls" and real-time goal tracking to drive community engagement and repeat donations.

The Business Impact Perspective

In the world of fundraising, Friction = Lost Revenue.

• Conversion Optimization: By streamlining the donation flow and designing a clear, persuasive marketing site, you lowered the barrier to entry for local teams, directly enabling the startup to onboard more users.
• Scalable Templating: The "Team Page" you designed served as a scalable asset that could be replicated for thousands of different sports teams without requiring individual custom design, allowing the startup to scale operationally.
• Brand Legitimacy: For an early-stage startup, a "big brand" look is essential for winning the trust of schools and athletic departments. Your designs provided the professional veneer necessary for Rally Around Us to compete with larger platforms.

The Intellectual Takeaway: This project demonstrated your ability to work autonomously and deliver high-impact results with minimal oversight. You proved that you could walk into a niche industry (Sports Tech/Fintech) and quickly identify the UX patterns required to drive revenue.