Airdonor Philanthropy CRM

Part 1: Introduction

Part 1.1. Overview / Summary

Goal: Quickly communicate what the project is, why it matters, and your role

"Elevator Pitch" Opening (1 paragraph): State the user problem (non-profit leaders frustrated by complex CRMs), your solution (Airdonor's value-driven insight), and your direct role (Solo Founder, Product Designer). This is your immediate hook.

Airdonor is a modern CRM purpose-built for nonprofits. It helps teams track donors, manage campaigns and events, and engage supporters more intelligently. Unlike traditional fundraising software—often expensive, bloated, or clunky— Airdonor is designed to be fast, flexible, and intuitive for smaller organizations with lean teams. I built it to serve the real workflows of Executive Directors, Development Managers, and Operations staff based on direct research and interviews.

I led the project end-to-end as a solo founder, from UX research and wireframes to fullstack implementation and launch.

  • Role: Solo founder, product designer, and fullstack developer
  • Tech Stack:
  • Frontend: Next.js (App Router), Tailwind, React Context for logged-in performance
  • Backend: Express.js, Prisma, PostgreSQL
  • Caching: Redis (performance optimization and user experience)
  • Platforms: Resend (emails), Mixpanel & Amplitude (analytics), Grafana Faro (frontend performance)
  • Core Infrastructure: Heroku Dyno, Render Postgres Cloud, Redis Cloud, Cloudflare
  • Tools: Figma (UX/UI), Notion (documentation), GitHub (CI/CD)

My goal with Airdonor is to give mission-driven teams a CRM that feels fast, empowering, and tailored to their day-to-day needs—not one that gets in their way.

Project Name: Airdonor - a modern, intelligent CRM for nonprofits

Role: Solo Founder, designer-developer

Tools Used: Figma, NextJS, Express, Redis, Postgres, Elasticsearch, OpenAI

Part 2: Understanding the User Problem

Goal: clarify what success looks like – for the user and the org
User Goals: Easily track donors, manage campaigns, send emails
Business Goals: Help organizations raise more, reduce churn, show value fast
Detail the pain points (from research insights).
User + Business Goals: What success looks like for both.
Rationale: This sets the stage before introducing the specific user. It explains why the problem matters and what success metrics are.

Part 2.1: User + Business Goals

Goal: Show you understand the real-world pain points of nonprofits
Research Insights (conversations with nonprofit staff, competitive analysis)
Gap in existing tools: Bloomerang, Givebutter, pricing, gap in features
Target Users: Development Directors, Executive Directors, Operations and Marketing Staff

Part 2.2 Personas:

Part 2.2.1. Executive Director

Anne oversees strategy, fundraising, and reporting at a national nonprofit. Her primary focus is understanding organizational performance, communicating impact to the board, and supporting fundraising goals without getting lost in the details. She often drops into the CRM to prepare for board meetings or donor calls — especially on the go.

Anne is frustrated by bloated CRMs that require deep digging for a simple trend or export. She needs high-level dashboards, mobile-friendly access, and data she can use to steer strategy and secure funding.

With Airdonor, Anne can log in to view campaign performance summaries, donor retention metrics, and fundraising outcomes. She can export board-ready PDFs in seconds, compare quarter-over-quarter results, and even access donor profiles from her phone in emergency situations. Airdonor gives her clarity without complexity.

Part 2.2.2. Director of Development

Maria leads fundraising and donor engagement at a mid-sized arts nonprofit. Her goals center on managing high-value donor relationships, optimizing campaign performance, and ensuring a consistent pipeline of support. She's often juggling major gift prospects, stewardship tasks, and campaign tracking — all under tight deadlines.

Maria is frustrated by clunky legacy CRMs that make logging interactions and filtering donor data slow and unintuitive. She needs a CRM that lets her quickly review donor histories, assign follow-up actions, and analyze giving trends within specific campaigns.

Airdonor was designed with Maria's role in mind. The app offers quick-access donor profiles, interaction history, and flexible tagging for gift stages. Campaign dashboards help her segment donors and analyze underperforming channels — all while making it easy to generate exportable insights for team meetings or reports.

Part 3: Process

Goal: Highlight your design and development approach, make it structured

Part 3.1 Research & Discovery

Part 3.1.1. User Interviews

Part 3.1.2. Competitive Analysis and Feature Breakdown

Part 3.2 Information Architecture and User Flows

Part 3.2.1. Information Architecture

Part 3.2.2. User Flows

Development Director – “Maria”

1. Major Gift Prospect Management

Dashboard → Donor Profile → Review giving history → Add interaction note → Set follow-up reminder → Update prospect stage → Generate cultivation plan

Campaign Performance Analysis

Campaign Dashboard → Select active campaign → View donation breakdown → Analyze donor segments → Identify underperforming channels → Export data for team meeting

Executive Director – “Anne”

1. Board Meeting Preparation

Reports Dashboard → Select date range → Generate fundraising summary → View donor retention metrics → Export board-ready report → Share with board members

Operations Associate – “Kiara”

Event Registration Management
Events → Create new event → Set ticket types and pricing → Import attendee list → Process payments → Generate attendee reports → Send pre-event communications

Part 4: UI Design Process

Part 4.1 Wireframing

Part 4.2 Visual Design

Component System (Tailwind + custom components)
Brand decisions (logo, typography, color systems
Accessibility choices

Design Decision (Visual): We chose a soft green accent color for buttons and highlights to align with our calming, trust-building brand direction.
Accessibility contrast was validated using WCAG 2.1 AA standards.
Design Decision (Usability and Accessibility): All form elements follow a minimum target size of 44x44px to support older users and mobile use.

Part 5: Software Development and Iteration

Part 5.1 System Design

To support a fast, responsive, and observable CRM experience for nonprofit teams, I designed a modular fullstack architecture focused on performance, developer velocity, and role-based UX logic.

App structure (Next.js App Router, Express backend, Prisma ORM)
Auth, Sessions, Redis, PostgreSQL schema design
Real-Time Analytics or Email Delivery (Resend, Mixpanel)

Part 5.2 Analytics and Performance Considerations

Part 5.2.1. Observability with Front End Performance Monitoring using Grafana

Part 5.2.2. User Analytics with Mixpanel and Amplitude

Part 5.3 User Testing and Feedback

Part 5.3.1 User Interviews with Maze

Part 6: Launching and Growth

Part 6.1 Landing Page

Part 6.2 SEO and Reputation

Part 6.3 Building a following on X