Creating good design for good reason for nearly 10 years, Firebelly understands sustainability and the importance of culturally relevant, socially responsible work. Our clients continually afford us real opportunities to affect the world around us and we love them for that. Sometimes, however, we see opportunities for change independent from our clients and decide to get involved on our own. Occasionally, we'll go so far as to shut down the entire studio to make these things happen. Here are a few examples:

Firebelly Foundation
If design is about communicating, philanthropy is about doing. And since Firebelly is all about getting involved and getting things done, we decided to start our own foundation.

Currently, Firebelly Foundation is focused on Reason to Give, its first nonprofit program. Offering direct giving, first hand results and an alternative to traditional gift exchange, Reason to Give shares the stories of Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood (where our studio is headquartered) and connects people who give a damn with people who need a hand.

Camp Firebelly
We’re honored by the amount of inquiries we get by students and nonprofits interested in working with our studio. But with just two internship opportunities a year and only one Design + Marketing Grant to award, it gets pretty frustrating turning down all that great talent and amazing work we see.

To help solve both problems, we launched a summer design program called Camp Firebelly. The 10-day design charrette selects the brightest, most talented students from across the country to live in our studio (!) and address a social justice issue with design + strategy. It’s a win-win for everyone: the students get real world experience, the nonprofit gets incredible design (for free) and we don’t have to feel like jerks for saying ‘no’ all the time.

Firebelly Art Market
As people paid for our creativity, talent and strategic thinking, it’s really important to us that we find time to make personal work not connected to clients, budgets and deadlines. And exercising our skills on projects out of the studio informs our client work too. But rather than just make cool stuff at home no one can see or share in, we find it more rewarding to donate that work to a good cause.

Twice a year, Firebelly (and our extended FB Fam) transform the studio into a boutique shopping experience and offer up our wares for sale. The profits go to help community efforts and individuals in need.