Office Design Ideas for Charities

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Office design that gives a little more than usual – these design ideas are for charities.

Your workspace is your company’s most powerful tool; designed correctly, it can set your teams up for success. User-centric office design has been shown to boost the productivity, health and wellbeing of occupants, so it’s important to consider employees when designing your space.

Charities run on wellbeing: they support it, promote it and their workspaces should be designed around it. We’ve gathered some of the best office design ideas for charities, all of which have a multi-faceted purpose from supporting employee performance, to creating accessible visitor experience. Take a look at these examples from our work with UNICEF and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

Dynamic design

Variety is a key aspect of successful office design no matter which sector you work in. Different textures, colours and materials should balance and animate your workplace, which should also offer a range of spaces to work in. Incorporating your brand colours in the interior scheme is also a wonderful way to create a cohesive visitor experience.

This area of UNICEF’s London office offers dynamic design both aesthetically and practically. From glass and neon lights to pastel finishes and Edison bulbs, the space is bright, airy and fresh. The open plan area can be used for informal meetings or socialising with seating options including bleachers, long tables and a bar.

Positive messaging

Your brand is an inextricable part of your business. Branding is clearly useful externally with client-facing applications, but it’s also beneficial internally. Incorporating your values, mission statement or like-minded messaging throughout your office space is one way to reinforce company culture and keep your staff inspired.

UNICEF’s ‘for every child’ tagline is featured prominently throughout their workspace. It’s a positive message the resonates in everything the organisation does, and is now mirrored in their office along with their signature shade of blue.

Meeting rooms

Charities work with many external teams, hosting and sponsoring events, selling products and advertising, meaning professional meeting space is in high demand. A range of meeting spaces, from smaller team-oriented rooms to larger and more formal conference rooms, will give your teams the right resources for any kind of meeting.

UNICEF have a wide variety of meeting spaces in their offices, from the causal settings we saw earlier, to bookable meeting rooms of all sizes. Their teams are fully equipped for any kind of brief, pitch or meeting with these tastefully branded rooms.

Flexible working

Flexible workspace is the modern way of working. Make sure your teams have the resources they need to be the best at what they do by taking advantage of open space plans and different work settings. Allowing staff to work freely about the office will increase productivity and space efficiencies as well as accommodate different working styles.

The Cystic Fibrosis Trust came to us for a new workspace that would support their transition to a more collaborative way of working where all their teams could operate on the same floor. We used multifunctional furniture and an open floorplan to create a space that promotes their teams’ collaboration and communication.

Branded accents

Just like incorporating your company’s mission and values, using brand colours throughout the workspace will create a stronger sense of internal identity. Whether you have paid staff or run purely on volunteers, a cohesive sense of self is crucial.

The Cystic Fibrosis Trust’s brand colour is yellow, so our design team made sure to feature it in the new workspace. The brand’s secondary colour palette is incorporated in the furniture throughout the office, and their messaging can be seen on the walls and whiteboards.

Accessibility

Inclusive design is a fundamental requirement of all workspace. All spaces should be accessible to all people, as well as encouraging collaboration, enabling inclusion and promoting considerate behaviour. Inclusive design principles can be used to ensure your space is comfortable, convenient and boosts the confidence of all users.

Cross-infection is particularly dangerous for people with cystic fibrosis and, as a result, they shouldn’t ever meet face-to-face. We carried out extensive research and testing to create an open plan space for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust that could be used at the same time by multiple people with cystic fibrosis.

If you’d like to learn more about how office design could empower your organisation, get in touch with our professional teams – we’d love to hear your story.

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