NationBuilder Professional Marketplace powered by 99designs

This article is intended to help certified NationBuilder partners get started on 99designs. If you are interested in becoming a certified NationBuilder partner, find out more here →

What is NationBuilder Professional Marketplace?

NationBuilder Professional Marketplace connects people who need help leveraging the power of NationBuilder with the right Professional using 99designs’ sophisticated matching technology. 

Over the past 10 years, 99designs has become the most trusted global creative platform for professionals to find and do work online. This partnership with NationBuilder is an excellent opportunity to scale your business supporting NationBuilder customers and take advantage of all 99designs has to offer including:

  • an online workspace that allows easy collaboration with clients
  • a secured payment system and support to ensure you get paid for your work
  • and sophisticated matching technology to get you in front of the right clients.

How it works

  1. NationBuilder directs its customers to 99designs
    Clients who need help from a NationBuilder Professional will be prompted to fill out a brief on 99designs to outline the goals, scope, and timeline of their project. Clients may come from the "hire a professional" links on NationBuilder.com, be referred by a member of the NB sales or support team, or through search engine results.

  2. Professionals are matched
    99designs uses the information from the client to recommend NationBuilder Professionals whose skills and availability best match the client's needs. The client reviews the recommended portfolios and requests a quote from the Professional they'd like to work with.

  3. Professional submits a quote & payment is secured
    The Professional reviews the project brief, asks the client any clarifying questions, and sends a quote. Once the details of the project like terms, deliverables, and budget have been agreed upon, 99designs secures the total payment from the client and the Professional can begin working on the project. Learn more about quotes and payments 

  4. Project complete!
    After the client approves all the work, the final payment is released to the Professional. The client is now positioned to execute on their campaign and organizational goals on NationBuilder, and the Professional has a new client relationship and improved profile to attract the next client lead.

We’re here for you!

The 99designs Designer Support team is available to help with any issues that arise, especially if you need help with a client. For priority support, email NBsupport@99designs.com

Levels

At 99designs, we work hard to maintain the quality and trust of our community. That’s why we require new creatives to apply to join and diligently curate community based on skill level, overall quality and professionalism.

To reward creatives as they build their skills, 99designs curates every member into one of three levels:

As you’ve already demonstrated your expertise with NationBuilder, you’ll skip Entry Level and start working at Mid Level! This means your profile will be indexed in our Designer Search feature and you’ll see a reduced Platform Fee of 10% on your projects. Learn more about 99designs’ Designer Levels →

Getting Started

Complete your 99designs profile

Potential clients will be shown your profile and portfolio so they can determine if you are a good fit for their project. They will look at the samples in your portfolio to see if you have the kind of experience they are looking for. They may also compare your profile to other Professionals, so it’s important to make a great first impression.

Profile cover

The first thing you’ll notice is your cover image: a thick bar of horizontal space that’s entirely yours to fill. This is your chance to showcase your personal design style, since it’s one of the first things clients will see.

image3.png

Make sure your cover design doesn’t distract from the rest of your portfolio or clash with your avatar. Avoid using images or designs that don’t belong to you. It’s misleading and will only damage your credibility.

Profile cover dimensions

  • Suggested size: 2480 x 400 px (for retina displays)
  • Minimum size: 1240 x 200 px
  • Display size: 1240 x 200 px on desktop screens; 540 x 200 px on mobile devices (minimum)

Avatar

Your avatar follows you across 99designs and represents your brand to clients, so make sure it’s professional! If you are an individual, you are welcome to use a professional, high-resolution headshot instead of a branded logo or avatar. We recommend playing off your cover photo and taking care with the brandmark you choose—you should put as much thought into this one as you would with a client.

 image1.jpg

Be sure to keep the image simple. Your avatar appears in different sizes across the site and should shrink down without losing too much detail. 

Read more about creating a personal brand here.

Avatar dimensions

  • Required: 500 x 500px square
  • Minimum Display Size: 32 x 32px (can shrink down without losing too much detail)
  • Format: Your avatar will be displayed as a circle

Your Portfolio

After you’ve filled out your profile info, it’s time to upload 12 work samples to your portfolio so potential clients can see your skills. You will need a minimum of 3 samples to start being matched with clients, but portfolios with at least 12 samples are given priority in Search so it’s in your best interest to upload 12 if you can!

image4.png

Example of a NationBuilder Professional Portfolio page

File size requirements

  • PNG, GIF or JPG (RGB)
  • Maximum file size of 8mb
  • Minimum dimensions of 960px by 960px
  • Maximum dimensions of 2,040px by 8,160px

How to upload your samples

After logging in, click the “Edit profile” button to get started. 

Click the “Portfolio” tab on the left, then click the “Add design” button. 

image5.png

After choosing the image you’d like to upload, use the cropping tool to create a nice thumbnail version for your portfolio page. 

image2.png

Credit: Chuckwalla Design

When choosing portfolio samples, think like a potential client!!

Clients will be shown a side-by-side portfolio comparison of Professionals who are a good fit for their brief. Make sure the client can instantly recognize your work as a NationBuilder Pro from the image you selected and the way it's cropped. You can always explain the details of the project/work in the description area.


When cropping,
be sure to include elements that indicate to the client that this is a web page or app design from the thumbnail. Even though the client can click to see an expanded view of the full image, if the thumbnail doesn’t represent the work they need done, they may skip over it altogether.

Titles, descriptions, & tagging

Titles, descriptions, and tagging help prospective clients better understand the context of your work and often elevates it from a pretty picture to a design that’s taken seriously.

Title

Give your design a descriptive name that helps the client understand what this sample represents.

Description

Don’t let your design be taken at face value. A brief explanation allows for much higher understanding and appreciation of your work. Explain the goals, timeline, and any special details about the design. You can also include a link to the website in the description so the client can view it in full (just make sure you have permission from your client to share it publicly).

Category

Choose “NationBuilder” from the dropdown menu.

Tagging

Tagging is an important aspect of your 99designs’ portfolio and will help you and your work become more discoverable to clients. Think about what your ideal client would search for when using Find a designer and how your work can best match their needs.

Are your work samples in a specific vertical or representative of a particular political ideology? Tags like “Environment”, “Political Campaign”, “Political Party” “Legislation”, “Human Rights”, “Animal Rights”, “Corporate Advocacy”, “Union”, “Coalition”, “Education”, “Alumni Network”, “Petition”, “Fundraising”, etc. can help clients find the right Professional for their cause or organization.  

There’s a maximum of 10 tags allowed per sample, so be sure to be thoughtful with the ones you use. Spamming with irrelevant tags will not only match you with the wrong clients, but is considered malicious and will be handled accordingly.

Finishing Your Profile

Your about page

We know there’s more that you want to say about yourself, so we devoted an entire second page to it. This way, the information here doesn’t crowd your portfolio, but is still easy to find.

By filling out this section, you can give clients a deeper understanding of your skill level, specialties and professional experience. It’s also a great place to share more of your personality.

Your bio

This is where you can tell potential clients more about your experience and skills. This is also the space to let clients know if there are religious or political ideologies you do not wish to work with or if there are particular causes you are passionate about. This is where you can give clients the hard sell and help them get to know you better.

Professional Background

This section allows you to provide more information about your work outside of the 99designs platform, such as links to other online portfolios, a personal website, or social media accounts. You can also indicate your years of experience. Currently, this information is only used internally by our Designer Curation team when reviewing designer accounts for quality.

Languages

99designs’ clients come from all over the world. Let them know what languages you speak so you can ensure solid communication throughout the design process.

Experience

This is an automatically populated section where we display your important 99designs stats, including number of completed projects, your response rate, and more. If you want to share experience outside of 99designs, be sure to include it in your bio!

Skills & certifications

These are two more automatically populated sections that show the design categories you specialize in and what you're certified as on 99designs. As a NationBuilder Pro, you should see the appropriate “NationBuilder” certification there.

Creating quotes & getting paid

99designs gives you the security of knowing you’ll be paid for your work. Payments are made by clients before any work should begin, but it’s up to you to decide how you’d like to have these earnings released to you.

All NationBuilder projects will be 1-to-1 Projects (NationBuilder Marketplace will not support design Contests). 1-to-1 Projects are all about personalizing the way you work, which is why we make payment options flexible.

For each project, you have three options for collecting payment:

  • Get paid on completion - The Pro sends a quote to the client for the total amount and payment is released in one lump sum upon completion.

  • Set payment releases - The Pro sets project milestones within their quote, requesting partial payments to be released upon completion of each one. The client pays the total amount upfront and funds are released to the Pro at the agreed-upon times.
  • Multiple quotes within a single project - If you choose, you may break up the client’s payments into multiple quotes within the same project, allowing them to “pay as they go” rather than paying one sum upfront. This can also work for retainers or other recurring payments. Read the guide linked below for more info. 

We’ve created a step-by-step guide to help you choose the best option for your project. Read it (and bookmark it!) here.

99designs offers two payment providers:

  • Payoneer: No withdrawal fee, free activation; low charges apply, 24-48 hour turnaround
  • PayPal: No withdrawal fee; charges apply, 2-3 day turnaround

Payments are processed on business days only. Business days do not include Saturdays, Sundays, or public holidays.

What fees does 99designs charge?

At 99designs, we’ve always strived to make our platform the best place for you to find and do work online. Connecting you with new clients, improving your workflow and driving more direct work to you is all part of that vision.

1-to-1 Project fees help support the 99designs platform so that we can continue to provide those opportunities to creatives and businesses around the world. Rather than charge a flat rate, 99designs fees are structured in a way that rewards repeat client relationships and platform success.

Client Introduction Fee

The client introduction fee covers the operational costs that 99designs incurs to find you new clients. These costs include on- and off-platform marketing of designers, search engine optimization, paid advertising, investment in designer/client search and matching algorithms, and more. This is a 20% fee that is taken from your first $500 of invoices with a new client (maximum of $100). This fee is waived when you work with a repeat client. Learn more about the client introduction fee →

Platform fee

This platform fee is charged to both clients and designers for each 1-to-1 Project completed on our platform. This fee helps cover operational costs including secure payment holds, dispute resolution, community curation, anti-fraud measures, payout processing, educational resources and the ongoing development of the platform.

Clients are charged a fixed 5% fee, while designers’ fees decrease from 15% to 5% as their level increases. NationBuilder Pros are onboarded at Mid Level and will incur a reduced Platform Fee of 10%. Learn more about the platform fee →

What should I do if a client wants to pay me outside of the 99designs platform?

It's very important that you not send or accept money outside of the 99designs website. 

Processing payment for services outside of 99designs means you will not be protected by our secure payment systems and other safeguards. Your safety and security are very important to us and we can’t protect your information in communications or payments sent outside of 99designs.

The 99designs platform is designed to reward those who complete more projects on the website. Taking payments outside of the platform is not only against our Terms of Use, but will hurt your chances of getting more clients from 99designs in the future. Circumvention is monitored closely by the fraud team and will result in account suspension.

99designs will never ask you to pay outside of our website, via bank transfer or email. All fees and taxes are handled through and included in your payment on 99designs.

If someone is asking you to complete payment off-site or through another company, report it to us immediately. Contact payments@99designs.com to forward an email or link us to the message.

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