Brand · Positioning
TreeRaise
Architecting TreeRaise: from a blank Figma canvas to a full fundraising ecosystem.
- End-to-end UX/UI and brand identity
- Custom AI Gems · Ory mascot series · Curriculum · Go-to-market
Wayne Elsey brought the vision. My role was to build everything else, the end-to-end creation of a fundraising platform built on behavioral psychology, AI content systems, and massive-scale creative production.
The Challenge
Translate a powerful philanthropic vision into a fully functional, market-ready ecosystem. That meant ground-up UX/UI and visual identity from absolute zero, deep data research to drive an overarching behavioral marketing design, unbreakable brand consistency across a massive volume of distinct assets, and an engaging educational and narrative experience for users of all ages.
How I Built It
The foundation started in Figma. I led the early research, established the core messaging, and locked in the exact fonts, colors, and visual language that would define the platform. To keep every piece of content unified, I engineered custom AI Gems, modular prompt systems that became the guardrails for the brand, allowing rapid scaling of aligned messaging, design, and social hooks without losing the core voice.
Beyond the visual architecture, I wrote the comprehensive copy for the entire site, including the ongoing blog. The strategy relied heavily on behavioral marketing design, understanding exactly how to guide users through the fundraising journey so the design actively prompted the desired actions.
The Experience
TreeRaise needed a soul, not just software. That came to life through a multi-tiered content strategy: Ory the Mascot, a series of videos to guide, educate, and entertain users; a full educational ecosystem of workbooks and curriculum to support schools; original storybooks for narrative world-building; and the go-to-market hooks and social campaigns needed to launch the brand and sustain momentum.
In Motion
Ory the Mascot and the TreeRaise story, brought to life across the platform and the schools it serves:
Built for Social
Short-form cuts engineered to carry the mission into feeds and stories:
What I Learned
When you build a platform from the ground up, the lines between UX, copywriting, and behavioral psychology disappear. They become interconnected levers: pull one, the others move. AI Gems aren't a workflow shortcut, they're a requirement for maintaining creative control when scaling a brand across hundreds of touchpoints.
Why It Matters
TreeRaise proves what's possible when strategy and execution aren't separated. A lean team can produce enterprise-level volume without sacrificing consistency, quality, or brand integrity, when the right systems are built from day one. Vision sets the destination, but the architectural build, the behavioral triggers, the design systems, and the narrative assets pave the road.
How TreeRaise was built
TreeRaise was not a design project with a marketing phase bolted on. It was one system: diagnose the friction, decide the position, build the identity around it, then run an automated content engine into paid and organic acquisition. Conversion data closes the loop. Cost per conversion by segment came back, got synthesised, and rewrote the targeting and the creative rather than sitting in a report.
Conversion data rewrites the funnel. 275 conversions on $6,823 spend.
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