Kindred

Most nonprofits lack a dedicated mobile presence. They rely on websites, email lists, and social media to engage with the communities they serve, which creates a fragmented experience. Families and individuals looking for events, resources, or ways to get involved are left hunting across multiple channels to find what they need. For an autism nonprofit, where the audience often includes people who benefit from clear, consistent, and accessible interfaces, this fragmentation is an even bigger barrier.

This project started with a gap I noticed while researching the nonprofit space. Many organizations, especially smaller ones, don't have dedicated apps for community engagement. Their audiences are left navigating clunky websites or scrolling through social media for updates. I saw an opportunity to design something that could serve an autism nonprofit specifically while being universal enough in structure that other nonprofits could adopt the same framework.

The blue color palette, widely recognized as a color associated with autism awareness, was chosen intentionally and adapted to feel warm and welcoming rather than clinical. The tagline, "You belong here," sets the emotional tone for the entire experience. The interface prioritizes clean navigation and clear information hierarchy, keeping things simple enough that the structure could flex to fit a different nonprofit's mission without losing the personal, purposeful feel Kindred was built with. That dual goal of being specific to autism while remaining universally adoptable was the central design challenge throughout the project.

Centralizing engagement was the first priority. Events, resources, articles, and donation tools all live in one app instead of being scattered across a website, an email newsletter, and multiple social media accounts. One home for everything the community needs.

The journal feature gives nonprofit professionals a platform to publish accessible, educational content directly within the app. Rather than linking out to academic papers or blog posts on a separate website, Kindred lets organizations share insights about living with autism right where their audience is already engaged. This turns the app from a utility into a living resource.

The donation system was designed to be present but never pressured. Users can donate easily if they choose to, and donors get transparent access to financial records, which builds trust. Donations are never required, staying true to the nonprofit mission. This balance between visibility and zero pressure was a deliberate design choice.

The biggest challenge in this project was designing for universality without losing specificity. Every layout decision, every feature, and every screen had to work for an autism-focused organization without being so specialized that the framework couldn't adapt to a different cause. That tension pushed me to think carefully about which elements are content (swappable) and which are structural (permanent), a distinction that applies to product design far beyond the nonprofit space.

Kindred currently exists as a hi-fidelity prototype designed for iOS with a structure flexible enough to adapt to other platforms. My plan is to continue refining the product through usability testing with nonprofit staff and the families they serve. The longer-term vision is a framework that any nonprofit could pick up and make their own, giving smaller organizations the kind of polished mobile experience that typically only well-funded organizations can afford.