Pro bono What’s wrong with free design work?

Pro bono work is undertaken for no fee for charities and not-for-profits. If you’re one of these organisations, that may sound great, but it could end up costing you a lot more than you think.

Branding, design and communications are powerful agents of change. They can make or break your organisation. So do you really want to relegate this work to a volunteer or an unpaid designer or agency? Asking for free work sets the wrong tone. It suggests the project is not properly valued. Truly effective work requires commitment, time and passion – things a designer is unlikely to give when they are unpaid. They are also unlikely to proactively make strategic suggestions if they result in more unpaid toil. This is not an environment conducive to creating effective work.

If someone is working for free, you have much less control. What if your designer is fitting your project in around paid work and can’t keep to the deadline, cuts corners or doesn’t provide a professional service? They may also be less willing to accommodate additional requirements, changes or rounds of amends.

A designer or agency may work for free because they want a creative portfolio piece or an award-winning project that they hope will help them win future projects. The problem is that this can give them a different agenda. Instead of creating something that works for your organisation, they may be more focused on creating something that works for them.

Projects can have tricky moments. When no one has skin in the game, it is easier for either party to walk away rather than work through the problem. And if the project is not completed, or the work fails, it will need to be redone – costing you more time, energy and money.

Often, the only agencies able to afford to work for free are those with large corporate clients linked to the systems damaging our health, society and environment. Some of these large agencies give a few days of their time each year for pro bono work, creating the absurd situation where an agency undermines your aims throughout the year, then offers you a few days of ‘charity’ work.

Asking for work for free is exploitative and unethical. It’s like the gig economy, but worse. The person doesn’t even get paid! If you are trying to create a fairer, more just society, you should pay people for their time. You wouldn’t ask other professionals to work for free. So why ask a designer?

There are designers, like me, who only work with charities, not-for-profits and ethical organisations. Supporting these designers helps them invest in their businesses, which in turn enables them to support more organisations create positive impact – creating a virtuous circle.