Free to Reuse
Take the language guide, the color rules, the checklist. No permission needed, no credit required.
THE DIRECTORY
How it's built.
Everything behind the organization, written down and left open. The typefaces and why we chose them, the words we use and the ones we do not, the tools we run on, and the public work we borrowed. If you are starting something like this, take any of it.
The Design System
Why the site looks the way it does, down to the letterforms. The whole thing is a stadium wayfinding system, because a sign exists to tell every person where they belong.
Open
How We Talk
Language is the first thing a family notices about an organization. Ours is written down so it stays consistent whether the person typing is the founder or a volunteer.
Open
What We Use
The actual stack, named. Where we bank, how we keep books, what processes donations, and which nonprofit discount programs are worth the paperwork.
Open
What We Borrowed
Almost none of this was invented here. The parts that came from people who gave their work away are named, with links back to the source.
Open
The Founding Series
"Ten posts, written while it happened." Concluded July 8.
The Name · The Story · The Paperwork · The Board · The Mission · The Money · The Rules · The Mark · The Site · What's Next
A closed process is just a claim.
Any organization can say it treats families with dignity. The question a donor cannot answer from the outside is whether that is a value or a slogan. So the working parts are on the table. The language rules can be checked against anything we publish. The design rules can be checked against any page. If we break one, it is visible, and that is the point of writing them down. The other reason is simpler. Starting a nonprofit is mostly a research problem, and the answers are scattered across forums and outdated blog posts. Ours are in one place.
Updated When It Changes
If a rule is revised, the page says what changed and when. No quiet edits.
Held to It
Publishing a standard means being measured against it. That is the trade, and we made it on purpose.
Starting One of Your Own?
If you are building something for your own community and any of this saves you a week, it did its job. Write to us. We will answer, and we will tell you what we got wrong.