Meet Monti Hill

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Monti Hill a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Monti , you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?

When I first started designing and developing content for organizations and political movements, I was so eager to get my work seen that I did most of my projects for free.

Most people start moving this way to get exposure to different communities and are eager to share what they can do without the thought of possible rejection from a potential client.

Eventually, that changed over time by learning my worth, time, and mental capacity in developing designs with intention.

I understood generosity from an equity mindset when I landed my first client, Gladiator Consulting.

My work is as attainable as larger design or marketing firms. Still, I had to understand that as I grew with clients and the projects became more complicated, I didn’t have to take on every project and share those opportunities with similar designers I knew in the community.

Learning to build solid relationships with the client through one-on-one, understanding if the project was meant for me, or in some cases if the project was out of scope, and bringing in another designer that was a better fit for the job only helped build a larger space of opportunities.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I work full-time for a nonprofit where the scope of work is very similar to what I do with my business, Design and Racial Equity—focusing on the intentionality of marketing for nonprofits, organizations, and companies looking to expand their marketing to more BIPOC communities.

I’ve expanded my thoughts, creativity, and projects by connecting with a movement group called Community-Centric Fundraising. The movement is more than just raising money for movement organizations. Still, building intentional anti-racism practices within the nonprofit sector, the design and marketing spaces have grown over the past year.

Recently, I’ve been expanding my creativity to more speaking engagements and sharing thoughts on why Design and Racial Equity are important as organizations look to redesign or expand their marketing community.

With these need opportunities for marketing exposure, I’ve been able to redevelop my business into report design for board meetings, support organizations with training or presentation designs, and dip into editorial work for publications.

All of this has expanded the design community to reach out more, so I developed a “Community Resource” tab on my website of supportive designers or consultants in areas I’m not, which again keeps the flow of community expanded and opportunities flowing.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

These skills and resources are in no particular order but these experiences over time have helped me understand my role and how to build capacity to take on new projects in this huge marketing and design community, especially as a person of color.

1. Marketing and design is more than a website, and social media:

Most clients need to learn what they need regarding design and marketing projects, even to the point of requesting you to take full control of design projects that might not fit your work scope.

This can leave you becoming a copy editor when your website designer, or developing content, and your graphic designer. It’s all the same to them, leaving you overwhelmed or exposed to designing without understanding the full scope of the work they need.

I’ve learned to eliminate unwanted time by asking intentional questions to learn about their past projects, understand their community, and if they need to expand their language or add more images of diverse people.

2. Embrace the down time in between projects:

Your passion is now supporting you to thrive, and you’re constantly learning,
growing, and trying to become better at your craft. Not to mention that the money
is great too, but I’ve learned to rest in between projects. A “slow quarter” doesn’t always mean that it’s time to turn up and pitch your next RFP (Request for Proposal) or attend the next big networking event in your area, but learn to figure out what didn’t go right with your last project, develop better practices on communicating during difficult conversations, or obtain a hobby outside of your scope of work. The downtime between projects is a space where we can learn to reset, break away from urgency, and start building new work environments that allow us to thrive.

3. Try to maintain your creativity, but provide balance on projects.

When starting a new project, the client might suggest vast expectations, but the budget might not align with the workload. I’ve always paid close attention to detail and never liked the saying, “It doesn’t have to be that complicated; just do something simple.”

When you’re starting a new project, establish your work routine your way. Try to develop a plan of action before you start designing so that you can set realistic expectations for yourself and the client. Creativity is a space that flows in and out of space throughout the day. It’s a space that should be forced but nourished so you can grow for future opportunities.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

With all that is happening with BIPOC voices, visuals, and content being erased from DEI programs, I’m interested in partnering with people that will be confident to express themselves during RFP interviews, in their work, or on projects that need diversity representation. We get into these scarcity mindsets that tend to overwhelm us because it could become a missed opportunity, and I fully understand. Still, without diversity and representation within marketing and design, it becomes a useless space and a voiceless community.

I added a “Community Resources” space for people in my website’s marketing, design, copy editing, and more digital content resources. I hope the community can grow, so if that’s you, let’s connect.