Microsoft Give
Making charitable giving effortless
Working at Microsoft, I helped launch ‘Give vNext,’ a charity platform that connects over 200,000 employees to a world of giving. As the primary designer on the platform, my role was to create an intuitive user experience and user interface, making charitable contributions easy and fostering a spirit of giving within the company.
- Role
- Lead Product Designer
- Years
- 2024
- Scope
- Strategy, UI/UX Design, Branding
Challenge
The charitable giving experience at Microsoft was buried in clunky, super outdated tools, making it hard for employees to participate and easy to miss entirely. I helped launch ‘Give vNext,’ a platform built to make giving simple, personal, and a larger part of company culture.
Impact
$0 Million
Raised Through the Platform
0+
Nonprofits Supported
0k+
Users
0+
Volunteer Hours Scheduled
Collaboration
As the lead designer, I collaborated directly with business stakeholders, product management, and software engineers, working to align the platform’s financial and participation goals with a tight engineering timeline while keeping the user experience at the center.
Design Directions
I explored three wireframe design directions for the new Give experience, each at a different level of custom. Mild built entirely from out-of-the-box components, medium introducing custom components where they earned it, and spicy a fully custom experience.
Choosing a Direction
I gathered feedback on all three wireframes from users and business stakeholders and sorted it into the positives and negatives for each. The more custom and elevated the direction, the heavier engineering lift and design system maintenance it carried.
Mild
Positive Feedback
Built entirely from standard components
Fast to ship, easy to maintain
Negative Feedback
Looks like every other internal tool
Legacy look and feel
Medium
Positive Feedback
Product feel without owning a full system
Brings in a first layer of personalization
Negative Feedback
Stitched-together feel
Resizes very awkwardly
Spicy (chosen)
Positive Feedback
Custom system built to scale with platform
Modern product look and feel
Fully personalized experience
Negative Feedback
Longest timeline and heaviest engineering lift
Key Experiences
Key Experiences
Landing Page
As part of the landing page redesign, I introduced a profile feature so employees could build their philanthropic identity, and a ‘My Actions’ section that surfaces the actions each user is most likely to take, making giving feel personal and immediate from the moment they arrive.
Volunteer Hub
I designed the ‘Volunteer Hub’ to make volunteer opportunities easy to find and act on. They’d previously been too buried, so I created a dedicated space that brings them forward, increasing visibility and participation.
October Give
October is Microsoft’s biggest giving season, and the goal was to turn that moment into real participation. I designed the ‘October Give’ page as a focused, high-visibility experience that spotlights seasonal campaigns and gives employees an obvious, easy way to get involved.
Mobile Experience
Mobile was overlooked in the previous platform. I designed proper mobile layouts for every key page, purposely built for the phone rather than scaled down from desktop.
Before & After
The old Microsoft Give experience was outdated, bland, and hard to use. The new platform is everything the old one wasn’t, modern, personal, and much more user friendly.
Notifications
I designed the platform’s Outlook and Teams notification systems to reach employees where they already work. By surfacing reminders and campaign announcements directly in their inbox and chat, the platform drove higher participation and engagement across giving campaigns.
Design System & Handoff
I built out a design system and a library of components for Give so I could responsibly hand the platform off and the team could easily maintain the experience over time without visual drift.
Experiencing Platform Results in Person
I got to enjoy the results of the platform in person while attending the Microsoft 5K race, where over 2,000 people signed up to participate through the platform I designed.
Colleague Feedback
Feedback from leaders and partners I worked with on the project, shared during performance reviews.
Charles has demonstrated impressive design decision-making skills, especially when working on a project with ambiguity and misalignment between key partners. He is not afraid to speak up and push back when needed, which has helped the team avoid potential problems.
Principal Product Designer
Microsoft
Your responsiveness and availability have ensured that our voices and concerns are acknowledged and resolved. I really appreciate your willingness and flexibility to ensure our launch was successful and provided a great experience for all of Microsoft employees.
Senior Business PM
Microsoft
