Marketing tools and messaging strategydesigned to help you grow.

What is Unseen Partnership?

Unseen partners with anti-trafficking and root cause organizations that have a history of success and are primed for growth. Partnership with Unseen centers around building compelling marketing tools to help you fundraise effectively, so you can expand your work and assist more people. 

Together, with each accepted partner, we develop an annual plan—a Roadmap—of Unseen products we will create for you. We create products one after the other, starting with fundraising essentials—such as Thank You Cards, Info Cards, or a Donation Card. As our partnership progresses, we collaborate on more complex messaging tools based on your needs and our resources.

View products and services.

What We Offer

Finding a Great Partnership Fit

Who we look for:

We find that organizations with the following characteristics fit well with our current products and services. If your organization is outside of the highly preferred parameters, below, but you think an Unseen partnership would be beneficial to your growth, please apply and tell us why! We’d love to get to know you and do, at times, accept organizations outside of this profile.

Required

  • Our missions align! You are actively fighting human trafficking or its root causes, and can describe, in stories and numbers, the important role you play in the anti-trafficking movement.
  • You have a history of success—making a demonstrable impact in the lives of vulnerable people. We work with growing organizations who have established programs and proven leadership.
  • Your staff directly serves beneficiaries. We believe the work of capacity building organizations is vital to the growth and strength of the counter-trafficking movement. However, because of our data reporting structure we aren't currently able to serve other capacity building organizations. (i.e. coalitions, granting agencies, those who fund partners).
  • You want to raise funds and are ready to grow. You have designated people on your team committed to making regular financial asks, and you can articulate a clear 2-5 year plan for organizational growth.
  • You’re able to designate a project manager or key point of contact from your organization to write content, review and approve projects, and move projects quickly forward to completion. (Averages 5 hours / week, but varies based on project size.)
  • You are a registered NGO in the U.S. (501c3) or in your organization's country.

Highly Recommended

  • At least 10-20% of your annual operating budget is raised through individual donations, rather than via grants, family foundations, or freedom businesses. This indicates you have a history with individual fundraising, are motivated to pursue it, and have staff and systems in place to build upon.
  • You have an annual operating revenue between $30,000 and $1,200,000. This size of organization tends to be a good fit with our marketing products. However, if your revenue is over this amount but you’ve been grant-dependent and are now launching into donor fundraising, partnership could be a good fit!
  • You had at least 100+ donors last year. Our tools help you connect, in English, with current and prospective donors in the US and other western countries. This is for several reasons: 1) We are US-based, and fundraise here, so our tools are tested in this environment. 2) GDP of charitable giving is high in the US. As our donors fund your projects, and you fundraise in an area with a good return, it’s also a great investment for our donors. We aren't able to help you find new donors. To use our products effectively, it's important that you have people to connect with and market to.
  • You don't have your own graphic designer or marketing department. Unseen directs each phase of product creation—scoping, writing, and design, and gives final creative sign-off. If you’re looking for collaboration and hearty input from Unseen on all of the above, partnership may be a great fit! If you’re looking for a printing company for products you’ve designed, then we may not be.

For more about partnership: Partnership Agreement

Who we're looking for in 2023:

We invite partnership applications from all parts of the world, but we’re especially looking for organizations working in Eastern Europe, South & Central America, and countries bordering Ukraine or China—specifically fighting sex and labor trafficking, online exploitation, organized crime, bride slavery, and/or serving refugees.

Additionally, if you’re working in the US near the US Southern border or among Native populations, we’d love to hear from you.

What Does it Cost to Work with Unseen?

Time

Projects take time, and we know you’re busy! We work hard to save you time and make our communication as seamless as possible. We typically communicate over email, and will meet via video when needed. If you’re in another timezone, this may involve some late night or early morning video calls.

Money

We believe in your work so much that we raise funds, just like you, to be able to provide our services at no cost to our partners. In rare cases where there are some financial costs, they will be clearly communicated and agreed upon before the start of any project.

In turn, we ask, in a spirit of mutual partnership, that you actively communicate with us—so that we can report the accelerating effect of our work to Unseen donors.

Proactive Use

The products we create for you are tools that will be effective when put to use! We're a great fit for organizations who want to allocate time and staff resources toward donor relationships, financial asks, increased messaging, and organizational growth.

Active Reporting

Our donors care about fighting human trafficking and its root causes! As a mutual partnership, we request annual reporting of your financial growth and impact, brief feedback after each project, and success stories of fundraising growth when using an Unseen product. 

We calculate ROI and report back to our investors. They want to see how their investment in products for you multiplies and accelerates the fight against human trafficking.

Project Process

Strategize and Roadmap - We’ll reach out once per calendar year to schedule your virtual Roadmapping meeting. We’ll talk through your fundraising goals and choose one or more Unseen products based on your needs for growth. We’ll create a Roadmap (i.e. production schedule) and you’ll review the proposed products, timelines, and approve the Roadmap. Once confirmed, one of Unseen’s Project Managers will be your guide throughout the entire Roadmap, bringing projects to completion, one by one.

Product Launch + Info Collection Phase - We’ll reach out via email when it’s time to begin your project. At the start of each project, you’ll sign our Creative Service Agreement (CSA) that outlines the entire production timeline. Please review this carefully and let us know right away if you need any dates adjusted. This is very important for our team as we work hard to maintain great relationships with our hired freelancers, as well as manage other partner projects that we’ve committed to. 

You’ll also be asked to write down messaging and design preferences, give creative input, and send us additional images and branding elements that will be applicable to this project in an Info Collection Form (ICF). We’ll review all information we gather and commit to completing the project together.

Messaging + Design Strategy Phase - Messaging is important to us! We’ll collaborate with you on your messaging and finalize before selecting and hiring a creative professional (graphic designer, video editor, etc.). This may take several rounds of going back and forth to nail down the exact content for the product. However, this portion is where our team spends the most time, ensuring what’s being communicated through the product is clear and effective to a donor audience. We also like to utilize mock-ups to help visualize where the content will be placed on the design piece, and choose photos that match the verbiage.

Design Phase - Your Unseen Project Manager will guide the design process and provide feedback to the Creative to ensure quality. You’ll give creative input and timely feedback within three rounds of edits, explained below.

  • Round 1 of Edits:
    • Unseen will send you a draft to review along with our suggested edits in an email, with a deadline to send your feedback. At this point, we want all major design edits and minor verbiage edits as needed. Please remember to include all necessary team members in this first round of edits. You’ll send your feedback to us, and we’ll compile all feedback and send it to the designer for the next draft.
  • Round 2 of Edits:
    • Unseen will send you another draft to review along with our suggested edits in an email, with a deadline to send your feedback. At this point, we want minor design edits and very minor verbiage tweaks as needed. Please remember to include all necessary team members in this round of edits. You’ll send your feedback to us, and we’ll compile all feedback and send it to the designer for the final draft.
  • Final Edits + Approval
    • Unseen will send you the final draft to review along with our suggested edits (if there are any), with a deadline to get your approval or final edits. At this point, we are hoping to send this draft to print if it’s ready, unless an emergency edit is needed (e.g. typo, mistakes, very minor tweaks etc.). Once approved, Unseen will compile all minor tweaks and send them to the designer. The designer will make those changes and deliver the final design files for Unseen to send to print (if a print project) and/or digitally send to you.

Project Wrap-Up - We'll wrap up the project by sending you final files, shipping information (if needed), and instructions for using the product (if needed). We’ll also send a post-project survey asking how the project went and your first impressions of the product itself. If you have another project scheduled on your Roadmap, your Project Manager will reach out to get it started shortly after this one is wrapped up.

A few months later, we’ll reach out with one more survey to get feedback on how the product has impacted your organization’s growth. Your feedback helps us improve and allows us to share your success with donors who will continue to fund future projects.

Partnership Phases
Every product or service that Unseen offers is organized into four different phases. Each phase offers sets of products to meet the unique needs of each organization.

All partners begin in Phases 1 and 2, and projects grow in complexity over time. Phase 1 focuses on foundational fundraising tools. Our partnership may move to more complex and expensive products in other phases as your fundraising capacity changes. An application process is required for entering Phase 3.

We want to see your mission grow! We also want to be wise stewards of our donors' generosity. For this reason, partners progress through phases after having some success in their current phase.

For specific information on products available in each phase, please contact us or visit our products page.

Ready to grow? Apply to partner with us.

Get Started

Partner Feedback:

Product:
Unseen Partnership
Since our partnership with Unseen, I've have seen an upsurge in my marketing and fundraising efforts due to the quality of the products that we have received. Beside just raising money I have received many compliments on the quality of our marketing tools which in turn have increased an awareness of Crossroads and our work.
Mahendra Singh, 3/31/2023
Product:
Messaging
When our work is enmeshed in the complexities of the industry our communication can sometimes become messy and unclear. Unseen helps us articulate a clear message that's hopeful and inspiring.
Tim Hupe, 3/31/2023
Product:
Slide Deck: Call to Action
The slide deck has allowed us to bring clarity to our organization's development strategies and helped us to share pertinent information with our supportive community and donors. It really is a great product and one that we will continue to use. I love that you gave us a format so as we grow, we can edit the information as needed. We appreciate having the ability to do so!!
Britney Higgs, 11/21/2023
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