Project / 03
Benjamin Reiser Foundation
Creative Direction / Community Impact
Building campaigns and experiences around community, opportunity, and Benjamin's legacy.
- Status
- Real Nonprofit Organization
- Role
- Board Member · Head of Marketing
- Focus
- Marketing Strategy, Event Identity, Campaigns, Visual Communication
- Type
- Real nonprofit
The Benjamin Reiser Foundation is one of the most personal projects I have worked on. After losing my close friend Benjamin, I joined his family and friends in helping build a foundation that could carry forward the things he cared about: entrepreneurship, opportunity, community, and big ideas.
The problem / context
What I was solving
Instead of asking only what looks good, I have had to think about what feels true to a person, what brings people together, and what can turn attention into meaningful impact. Design here is not decoration. It is how a mission becomes something people can join.
My role
How I worked
As a Board Member and Head of Marketing, I help lead marketing strategy, brand foundation initiatives, develop visual communication and social-media direction, support fundraising and sponsor communication, and help translate new ideas into public experiences, collaborating with Benjamin's family, friends, students, sponsors, and community partners. I do not run the Foundation alone.
Title
- Board Member
- Head of Marketing
The process
Thinking, versions, evidence
- 01SYSTEM
One foundation, different experiences
A pickleball tournament and an outdoor concert should not look identical, but both should feel connected to the same values. The Foundation provides mission, trust, continuity, voice, and purpose. Each initiative develops its own creative identity.
- Tone: energetic for events, careful for memory.
- Systems: shared values, different experiences.
- Collaboration: family, friends, sponsors, students.
Real event / Completed
Benjamin Reiser Pickleball Tournament
One of the Foundation's first major fundraising initiatives was a large community pickleball tournament bringing together students, families, sponsors, and supporters.
For the pickleball tournament, the challenge was translating a cause into an event people actively wanted to join. Marketing had to work across players, families, sponsors, and donors while keeping the tone energetic rather than formal.
Real impact
192
Participants
16+
Sponsors
$40K+
Raised
Event
Campaign
Merchandise
- ACTUAL EVENT: photography, signage, registration, brackets
- Promotional content and sponsor materials
- Community fundraising through the Benjamin Reiser Foundation
Upcoming / In development
Ramblin' at the Farm
An upcoming outdoor music concept: high-school bands, students, families, and the broader Atlanta community for a Battle of the Bands and outdoor concert. The event should feel like a real music event first and a fundraiser second.
Who is this for? Why would someone come? What makes it feel like a real event? How does the Foundation fit into the experience without making it institutional?
- 01REJECTED DIRECTION
Naming exploration
Bands for Benji → Jam on the Farm → Ramblin' at the Stables → Ramblin' at the Farm. The final name was not the first idea.
- 02IN DEVELOPMENT
Visual exploration
Logo experiments, typography studies, barn concepts, badges, hand-drawn marks, distressed lettering, poster directions, including rejected designs.
- 03CONCEPT APPLICATION
Campaign & environment
Save-the-date, call for bands, lineup, countdown, passes, stage/entrance concepts, and merchandise ideas. Unproduced items are labeled as concept applications.
Identity
Merchandise
- Core themes: community, music, purpose
- Band planning remains editable as lineup evolves
- Do not present as a completed event
Outcome
Where it landed
The Foundation has produced real community fundraising through completed events, while newer initiatives like Ramblin' at the Farm remain in development. The work continues as a living system of campaigns and experiences.
Reflection
“The hardest part of this work has been that the subject is personal. Benjamin was my friend before his name became a Foundation name or an event logo. That has made me much more careful about what design is doing. The goal is not to turn someone's memory into branding. It is to create experiences that feel like the kind of things he would have wanted to be part of.”