About Funding Breakthrough Lab
Funding Breakthrough Lab (FBL) is a San Francisco–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit pre-accelerator. We help early-stage founders get ready to raise money and build companies that last. We run a a 10-week cohort where founders learn the fundamentals directly from people who do this work every day — venture capital, private equity, and corporate operators — alongside retreats, demo days, and pitch events. Around that program is a community of roughly 24,000 founders, operators, and investors who show up for each other.
We are a nonprofit, and we run like one: lean, practical, and focused on the founders in the room rather than on making noise. What we care about is real people making real connections and getting real help at the stage when it matters most.
Who we serve
Our founders are early-stage and often first-time — talented people with a strong idea who don’t start out with a warm introduction to an investor or a built-in network. Many are underestimated by the traditional funding world, including: women, immigrant founders, underserved founders, first time founders with deep expertise. We give them the room, the relationships, and the straight-talking guidance to close that gap. Everything we make should feel like it was built for them: credible enough to stand next to any accelerator, and human enough that a founder feels welcome rather than sold to.
About the role
We’re looking for a volunteer Creative Director to own the vision for FBL’s brand and to build the small team that brings it to life. You’ll assemble and lead a volunteer crew of designers and video editors, set the creative direction, and turn a growing library of assets into a brand that feels unmistakably like us. This is a leadership role for someone who’s energized by shaping a look from the ground up and by getting the best work out of other creatives.
We already have a lot to work with — testimonials, event footage, decks, logos, community, and a real story worth telling. Consider this a creative playground: the space is yours to let your imagination run, with a mission clear enough to give the work meaning. The through-line for everything the team makes: reputable but down to earth. Polished and trustworthy, never hype.
Warm, clear, and honest — the kind of design that makes a founder trust us before we’ve said a word.
What you’ll do
- Set the creative vision: define FBL’s overall look, feel, and voice across design and video, and hold the bar for quality and consistency.
- Build and lead the volunteer team: recruit, onboard, and coordinate a volunteer crew of designers and video editors — giving each person clear direction and creative room to do their best work.
- Onboard new creatives: bring people up to speed on the brand, the mission, and where to find what they need, so new volunteers can contribute quickly.
- Make the most of our assets: shape our existing library — testimonials, event footage, decks, logos, photography — into cohesive brand materials rather than starting from a blank page.
- Direct key deliverables: guide the brand identity and guidelines, event and social content, decks, website look and feel, and video — delegating execution while keeping it all on-brand.
Keep things moving: prioritize, set light-touch timelines, and keep a volunteer team motivated and unblocked.
What we’re looking for
- A creative leader with a portfolio showing strong brand and/or video work — and ideally experience directing others.
- Self-motivated and comfortable operating with autonomy. This is volunteer work, so we’re looking for someone who takes ownership and drives things forward without needing to be managed.
- A natural at bringing people in — able to recruit, onboard, and get the best out of other volunteer creatives.
- Strong creative judgment: an eye for work that reads as credible and human at once, not corporate, not hype.
- Fluency across the modern toolkit (Canva, Figma, Adobe, video editing tools). A lot of our day-to-day lives in Canva.
A genuine interest in supporting early-stage and underestimated founders.
Time commitment
Flexible and self-directed. We’ll shape the scope around your availability — this is an unpaid, pro bono leadership role with real creative ownership, a real team to build, and real impact to show for it.
Skills Required
- Portfolio showing strong brand and/or video work
- Experience directing others (ideally)
- Self-motivated and able to operate with autonomy
- Ability to recruit, onboard, and coordinate volunteer creatives
- Strong creative judgment for credible, human design
- Fluency with modern toolkit (Canva, Figma, Adobe, video editing tools)
- Genuine interest in supporting early-stage and underestimated founders
