Challenge: Building on the success of an earlier positioning strategy engagement, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy partnered with me again to evaluate a different strategic challenge: how design functioned across the organization. With a broader rebrand on the horizon, leadership wanted to understand where existing systems, workflows, and assets were creating friction, and how to build a more scalable foundation for future communications.

Approach: I led a comprehensive design strategy audit that involved stakeholder research, asset evaluation, peer benchmarking, and systems thinking. Rather than focusing solely on visual design, the engagement examined how design was created, managed, and applied across departments, identifying opportunities to improve collaboration, establish clearer decision-making, and create a more scalable design ecosystem to support future brand evolution.

The work included:

• Conducting stakeholder research to understand design workflows and challenges

• Auditing existing branded assets to identify patterns, strengths, and systemic inconsistencies

• Benchmarking peer nonprofit organizations to evaluate industry practices and design systems

• Developing a design framework defining template strategy and decision-making principles

• Creating a phased implementation roadmap to guide adoption, rollout, and long-term system evolution

Impact: The resulting strategy provided leadership with a practical roadmap for evolving the Conservancy's design ecosystem alongside its broader rebrand initiative. The recommendations established a future-state operating model for design, introducing scalable template strategies, clear decision frameworks, and practical guidance for balancing consistency with creative flexibility. Together, the audit provides a structured foundation for improving collaboration, streamlining design requests, and supporting long-term brand stewardship across the organization.