Your website is the front door to help everyone explore your services, understand their options, and decide what to do next (with support available when they want or need it).
HeartSpark helps disability-serving nonprofits and service providers reduce communication barriers, improve access to information, and build websites and tools their teams can maintain.
Your team knows the programs, funding systems, referral paths, and internal lingo. But the disabled people you serve don’t know the ins and outs of the system like you do.
When people can’t find the right service, understand a process, or complete the next step, communication has become another barrier.
Your staff feels it, too. They answer repeat questions, follow up on missing information, and recreate materials because the website isn’t doing enough of the explaining. These aren’t simply design problems. They affect how your organization delivers its mission.
You may serve disabled people across several programs, funding systems, locations, or referral paths.
But your communications department might be one development person, an operations leader, or whoever has enough time to update the website that day.
HeartSpark works with disability-serving nonprofits, service providers, regional centers, associations, and foundations that need to make complex information easier to use.
You don’t need a complicated marketing machine.
You need clear information, thoughtful design, and practical tools that help people reach your organization without creating more work for your staff.
Technical accessibility standards matter. They help us identify barriers and create a stronger foundation.
But a checklist can’t tell you which information your community needs most. It can’t explain why people keep calling with the same question, which next step is unclear, or whether your materials reflect the people you serve.
That requires listening.
One design cannot meet every person’s needs in every situation. But that isn’t a reason to push accessibility aside. It’s a reason to understand the different people you serve, focus on the barriers affecting them, and create a process for continued improvement.
HeartSpark brings accessible communication, community perspectives, technical guidance, and thoughtful design together. The goal isn’t to claim that your organization is perfectly accessible to everyone. The goal is to make informed choices that reduce barriers, support people’s choices, and make your information easier to use.
Because design created with disabled people in mind often creates clearer experiences for everyone.
Over six years and 35+ refreshes, HeartSpark has helped nonprofit teams walk into donor meetings with confidence and let their brand do the heavy lifting.
You may not need a new website. You may need clearer service information, simpler navigation, more useful forms, or a better way to keep content current.
The Clarity + Access Assessment shows you where communication barriers may be appearing, what deserves attention first, and what your organization can realistically do next.
Lauren Atherton is an accessible communications strategist, disabled designer, and the founder of HeartSpark Design. She helps nonprofit teams listen to different perspectives, make sense of complex information, and turn it into a clear visual and communication system.
Lauren’s lived experience with chronic illness and disability shapes our design approach, but it doesn’t represent every disability or community. That’s why curiosity and collaboration are central to our work. When a project requires formal testing, specialized development, translation, or another area of expertise, HeartSpark brings in trusted specialists.
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