Design Series

Designing Social Impact Projects for Success

Start your journey to designing purpose-driven projects with confidence.

This lesson series introduces the essential tools and frameworks nonprofits and social enterprises need to build a strong project foundation.

Start Learning About design series 
flowchart TD
    A["<div style='padding: 12px; font-size: 16px;'><div style='font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 6px;'>🔍</div><strong>Problem Tree</strong><br/><small>Identify Root Causes</small></div>"]
    B["<div style='padding: 12px; font-size: 16px;'><div style='font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 6px;'>👥</div><strong>Stakeholder Mapping</strong><br/><small>Engage Partners</small></div>"]
    C["<div style='padding: 12px; font-size: 16px;'><div style='font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 6px;'>🗂️</div><strong>Synthesize Data</strong><br/><small>Combine Insights</small></div>"]
    D["<div style='padding: 12px; font-size: 16px;'><div style='font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 6px;'>🎯</div><strong>Theory of Change</strong><br/><small>Define Impact Path</small></div>"]
    E["<div style='padding: 12px; font-size: 16px;'><div style='font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 6px;'>📊</div><strong>Logical Framework</strong><br/><small>Set Indicators</small></div>"]
    F["<div style='padding: 12px; font-size: 16px;'><div style='font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 6px;'>⚙️</div><strong>Activity Design</strong><br/><small>Plan Implementation</small></div>"]
    G["<div style='padding: 12px; font-size: 16px;'><div style='font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 6px;'>📝</div><strong>Proposal Writing</strong><br/><small>Build Your Case</small></div>"]
    H["<div style='padding: 12px; font-size: 16px;'><div style='font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 6px;'>💰</div><strong>Budget Estimation</strong><br/><small>Resource Planning</small></div>"]

    A -.-> B
    B -.-> C
    C -.-> D
    D -.-> E
    E -.-> F
    F -.-> G
    G -.-> H

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Your 8-step journey from problem identification to project implementation

Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to common questions about the toolkit, its structure, and how it can support your nonprofit project design work.

The Nonprofit Project Design Toolkit is a free, step-by-step learning series that helps nonprofits and social enterprises design evidence-based, fundable projects. Through eight practical lessons, you move from understanding the problem and your stakeholders to building a theory of change, logframe, activities, proposal, and budget you can confidently share with funders and partners.
This series is for nonprofit and social impact teams who want to design projects that are realistic, community-centered, and funder-ready. It works well for founders, program managers, youth-led organizations, and anyone who needs a clear structure for turning ideas into projects with measurable outcomes.
You will learn practical methods for designing evidence-based projects. You'll start by analyzing your problem with a problem tree and mapping stakeholders. Then you'll synthesize insights using affinity diagrams and build a theory of change. Finally, you'll create a logical framework, design activities, write a compelling proposal, and estimate a realistic budget that demonstrates how your project creates measurable impact.
The toolkit is organized into two main modules and eight lessons. The "Building Foundation" module guides you through problem analysis, stakeholder mapping, data synthesis, and theory of change. The "Operationalize" module focuses on the logical framework, activity design, proposal writing, and budget estimation, so you end with a coherent and fundable project design.
You can complete the full series in a focused weekend or over several shorter sessions. Module 1 typically takes 4-6 hours if you engage with the exercises and templates, while Module 2 may take a similar amount of time depending on how complex your project is and how many stakeholders you involve in the process.
Yes. The templates, canvases, and examples are designed to be reused across multiple projects and funding opportunities. You can adapt them to your local context, translate them for your team, and integrate them into your organization's internal toolkits, as long as you keep the original credit and do not resell the toolkit as a standalone product.
Yes, the toolkit is free to use. Festa Design Studio created it to support nonprofits, youth-led initiatives, and social enterprises that often do not have access to project design support. We may occasionally invite you to share feedback or join learning spaces, but there is no paywall to access the core lessons and resources.
The toolkit guides you to slow down and deeply understand the people and systems affected by your project before proposing solutions. Tools like stakeholder mapping, problem analysis, and theory of change are designed to surface power dynamics, lived experience, and local knowledge. This approach helps you design alongside communities - valuing their expertise and ensuring your project responds to their needs, not just your assumptions.

Community-Centered Design

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mindmap
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