From time to time we will profile members of the Give Lively team, revealing more about who we are, what we do and how we fit into a mix of dedicated and dynamic engineers, creatives, strategists and advocates helping nonprofits do more with digital fundraising tools.

Like the focus of this week’s profile, the full Give Lively team is passionate about using tech for social good and providing a better fundraising experience to nonprofits and donors.

Olivia Gulin

What do you do at Give Lively?

I’m a user experience (UX) designer. I look at how a person interacts with our platform and try to make it as easy and efficient as possible. Most of the time, this means I design the interfaces for our products, like Campaign Pages and the Nonprofit Admin Portal. But user experience is a broad term and can encompass everything from user onboarding to customer service, and I try to help out in those areas when needed.

What does a day in your life at Give Lively look like?

Given the breadth of UX work, no two days are exactly alike. Early in a project, I might do a lot of research. I’ll look at our competition and read through existing user feedback, data and design resources to gather ideas for different design solutions. Meanwhile, I might also be in conversation with our development team to understand what technical needs and limitations might need to be met. Similarly, our customer service and business development teams are great sources for understanding our user needs.

Once a design is ready, I spend a lot of time presenting work, gathering feedback from different teams and revising the designs. This can go on for a while until we feel confident – and then we put the design in front of users, get their feedback and revise some more! We design, review and design again until we’re ready to move on to another project.

What do you like to do outside of Give Lively?

I like to think about what I’m going to eat next… and then eat it. Lately, I’ve been learning to cook more Korean food! Even if I don’t always get it right, the food is tasty and I’m happy. Living in NYC also gives me many opportunities to try new foods. My favorite thing I’ve tried recently is a Uyghur restaurant on Brighton Beach. Lamb manta!! You just can’t go wrong with a dumpling.

I also spend maybe too much time gaming. I used to play Splatoon competitively and still enjoy going to the LANs (in-person eSports competitions where players compete on a Local Area Network) now and again. Like every other gamer, Balatro has taken over my brain. I’m also still working my way through the latest Zelda title, Echoes of Wisdom.

What excites you about Give Lively?

Getting to use all my skills for the benefit of the nonprofit community as a whole. Before joining Give Lively, I had a few incredible experiences volunteering with some organizations, and I loved being able to improve the world through design. Working here means every design I make touches thousands more every day. It’s hard to grasp just how wide an impact we can have by making our tech available to everyone.