Donate Equity - UX Internship Case Study
A tool to help nonprofits accept business equity donations with confidence and clarity.
Project Overview
My Role: UX Design Intern (eventually led onboarding UX)
Team: 2 UX interns, Founder (initial starting team) + Lead UX Designer, Developer, 5 API & finance interns (as development continued)
Timeline: June 2024 – Present (Launched: July 2025)
Tools: Figma, Framer, Bubble, UserGuiding, HubSpot, Stripe
Deliverables: Wireframes, User Flows, Visual Design, Prototype, Onboarding UX, Landing Page
Impact: Signed nonprofit pre-launch, launch & podcast feature July 2025, interest and potential deals with 2 universities, multiple interested partners and integrations.
“How can we make something as complex as equity donation feel approachable for any nonprofit?”
The Challenge
Business equity donations can be a game-changer for nonprofits—but the process is confusing, legal-heavy, and rarely completed without significant resources.
The Problem
Most nonprofits don’t have in-house legal teams.
Confusion around multi-stakeholder steps (boards, donors, foundations).
No dedicated tool exists to streamline this process.
Why solve it?
Enable more organizations to unlock equity-based funding.
Become the go-to infrastructure for complex nonprofit donations.
Chapter 1
Discovery
Research
We used both qualitative and quantitative methods to understand the needs of:
Nonprofits (our primary users)
Donors (equity holders)
Community Foundations (often act as facilitators)
Methods Used:
User interviews
Live walkthroughs of prototypes
In-app feedback/help forms
Key insight: Users didn’t need another project management tool—they needed guidance, clarity, and structure.
Chapter 2
Design Process
Together with the team, I helped:
Map out the entire donation journey
Identify where users needed collaboration, legal support, or document templates
Establish a repeatable task flow for donation processing
The Donation Process & User Actions
Ideation & User Flow
Early Mockups & Evolution
Early concepts focused on editable task lists, a dashboard, and upload features.
User feedback showed that customization added confusion—what users really wanted was to be guided.
Key Decisions:
Pre-populated task list replaced editable checklists
Clear callouts for when to invite others (e.g. donor, team, board members)
Resource section for legal templates
Before
Prototyping with Bubble
After
Why Bubble?
Our team chose Bubble for its speed and flexibility—perfect for rapidly iterating based on feedback.
What I Worked On:
Prototyping necessary popups for when a user clicked on a task
Rapid iterations to designs based on Bubble’s limitations
Feedback loop from user demos directly to design iterations
Technical Challenge: We had to revise our popups and reusable elements due to lag and loading speeds. We prioritized a fast and seamless web experience at the cost of deleting some reusable elements.
Visual Design
Once we brought on a lead UX designer, we:
Implemented a full design system in Figma
Faster designing to address feedback quicker
Chose brand colors that felt clean, calm, and supportive
Supported our goal of “simplifying” the donation process by presenting a simple image
Created reusable UI components for consistent styling across marketing and product
Assisted in presenting to potential investors and stakeholders
Onboarding & UserGuiding (My Lead Contribution)
After feedback revealed confusion, I led the integration of UserGuiding to create a smoother onboarding experience.
What I Did:
Designed segment-specific welcome videos (Donor, Nonprofit, Foundation)
Built interactive tooltips, task guides, and navigation helpers using video clips from our founder
Helped users feel seen, supported, and oriented
Chapter 3
User Testing & Iteration
Testing Methods:
Tested with stakeholders from nonprofits, foundations, and donors
Conducted 1-on-1 walkthroughs + remote testing
Collected feedback via forms and open-text emails
Changes We Made:
Added UserGuiding tooltips for better first-time navigation
Added features like "invite your board members"
Removed editable tasks that caused user hesitation
Walkthrough
Outcome & Results
Signed nonprofit before launch
Podcast feature July 9, 2025
30+ users within the first month
2 interested Universities
Partner & integration deals on the horizon
Lessons Learned
Don’t assume complexity = value. Users want clarity, simplicity can be the best solution.
Onboarding matters. It sets the tone for trust and confidence.
Design + dev communication is key, especially with no-code tools.
What’s Next?
Short-Term:
Create marketing materials for nonprofits & community foundations to use when learning about the donation process and talking with donors.
Shift from Bubble to our own code.
Long-Term:
Expand to include other donation types.
Pursue integrations to improve and add on to our features.
Build education library.
Chapter 4
Final Design
Additionally, check out our landing page here.