We’re a new online services company committed to listening carefully to our nonprofit and small business clients and helping them achieve their goals.
If your company or organization needs help with online strategy, design, development, or implementation, we can help.
Whether you need to raise more money, increase sales, or collect more signatures for a key campaign, we have the expertise to help you out.
We’re fluent in the tools and strategies that’ll help you get more out of your investment in the online world. Whether you need advice about social media, help writing more engaging emails, or assistance selecting the right technology, we’ve got you covered.
Need to upgrade your website’s look? Starting a new company from scratch? Need an eye-catching email template for a new campaign? Our team can help!
We’re savvy in visual design, from logos and branding to complicated, multifaceted websites. Our approach blends creativity and innovation with an understanding of your audience’s needs to produce work that’s beautiful, memorable, and effective.
We have the skills to turn your ideas into reality. We’re savvy with code and experienced with a variety of platforms and technologies.
Drupal, WordPress, Convio, Salsa, NationBuilder, MailChimp? No problem. Responsive design, Javascript, CSS3, HTML5? Every day. Facebook App? Been there, done that. Our familiarity with different solutions lets us implement the one that’s right for you.
We believe in empowering our clients and providing great training, but we’re also happy to help with copywriting, software and security updates, email campaigns, ongoing support and the like — whatever helps you keep your online presence humming along.
And although we find it easiest to service and support what we’ve built, we’re also willing and able to assist with pre-existing systems.
We’re not here to get rich; if that was the case, we’d go into investment banking or found a startup with missing vowels in the name. No, we’re here because we love helping people achieve their goals. We know it’s not our clients’ jobs to be tech-savvy like we are, and that’s cool: we recognize that our clients bring their own insight and expertise. We respect your perspective, and respect the constraints — time, budget, etc. — you work within.
We prefer lasting relationships with our clients over one-off, “fire and forget” work (which isn’t to say we won’t do one-offs, mind you). We’re more interested in clients who are looking to build long-term relationships with their customers and constituents and can see the big picture; sometimes it takes a little more investment up front to craft more flexible, future-friendly websites.
We’re a small team, and each of us has our own values and needs. We’re interested in working with clients who treat us as equal partners, not just the “hired help.” We’re not interested in working with organizations and causes whose values and goals conflict with our own beliefs (sorry, Tea Partiers). While the success of our clients is incredibly important to us, so are our families, and we aim to maintain a healthy work/life balance that keeps us energized and happy with our jobs.
We work to ensure that we’re doing everything the right way, from how we bill our clients to how we write our code to how we credit others whose work we rely and build upon. It’s about giving back to the communities we draw upon, and leaving the world (wide web) a better place than we found it.
We identify with and respect the folks who use the sites we build, and we aim to create services and experiences that make sense to them. It’s not that sites need to be simple and engaging because people are dumb or don’t care; it’s that we’re all busy and have a legitimate expectation that things be easy to use. We acknowledge the realities of what users want and need, and fine-tune our work until it makes our clients (and their clients!) happy and engaged.
At the end of the day, we strive to do work that’s really, really good and that we can be proud of. It’s not just about being “good enough” that our clients are satisfied — it’s about taking care of the little extra things and subtle details that make a big difference in how successful a project is, whether before, during, or after it’s done.
Ira has more than a decade of online communications, advocacy, and fundraising experience, primarily planning and executing campaigns for hundreds of nonprofit organizations. Ira’s expertise is with coordinating campaigns using online marketing platforms such as Convio Luminate Online, Salsa, and Blue State Digital, to name but a few.
Prior to founding Cornershop Creative, Ira was the Senior Project Manager for Firefly Partners, where he managed hundreds of online projects including website design/builds, CRM deployments, and online strategic planning. Prior to Firefly, Ira served as the online community organizer for Free Press, where he was responsible for executing online campaigns, leveraging social media and social networking sites, and providing innovative online organizing tools for supporters. Ira has executed several award-winning campaigns, including projects that won a People’s Choice Webby and a Convio Innovator Award.
Ira lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife, son, and two friendly cats.
Ben has a BFA in Graphic Design from Iowa State University and has been designing professionally for nearly 13 years. To found Cornershop Creative, Ben left his position as senior front-end designer for New Signature, where his extensive experience with languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript were put to good use implementing his designs on several CMS platforms, including WordPress and Drupal.
Prior to joining New Signature, Ben worked as the lead graphic designer and web developer for Firefly Partners. Before that he was at Free Press, where he rolled his own CMS in addition to designing countless brands, brochures, and websites (one of which garnered a “People’s Choice” Webby award).
He has presented on the difference between print and web design, web typography, WordPress widgets, SASS+Compass, and on front-end performance optimization. Ben lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico and until recently co-lead the local web group HTTQ.
Lesley has an MBA from the University of New Mexico’s Executive MBA program and an English degree from UNM, as well. She’s been working on the web since she was in high school, and ran her own small web design shop before she could drive. To found Cornershop Creative, Lesley left her job as the Web Manager for one of the largest school districts in the nation, overseeing the main district site, 62 department sites, and 140 individual school sites.
Lesley has extensive experience identifying business needs, selecting technologies to meet those needs, and helping organizations adopt those technologies to achieve their goals. She believes that a website, social media presence, email marketing campaign, or mobile app can transform an organization into one that enchants customers. In August 2012, Lesley and her family began a new life in Grenoble, France, where her husband is pursuing a Ph.D. in Business.
Ira and company have their fingers on the pulse of the latest online technologies and a stellar track record of working in partnership with nonprofits around the country.
We’re delighted to announce the launch of our latest site, the Global Health Report Card from Universities Allied for Essential Medicines. Though built in WordPress, you’d probably never guess it from the way the site works. Read more
Recently, our very own Ben Byrne was featured on the Lullabot blog, a prominent Drupal community site, for a module he authored that makes it easy for site owners to customize those article teasers we all love so much. Read more
Our newest site is getting some love from the bad-ass ladies it serves and represents. Read more
Salsa‘s new growyourbase.org initiative launched this week, and is already off to an amazing start. The new site aims to help nonprofits with the single most common nonprofit goal: growing their supporter lists (and thus, their reach and… Read more
Yesterday marked one thousand days since the doomed Deepwater Horizon spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and, as the Environmental Defense Fund points out in their compelling new infographic, the Gulf… Read more
Global Health Report Card 
AE + SCA + YOU 
Women, Action, and the Media 
August Marine 
Acumen Consulting Group 
Glen Echo Group 
Video the Vote 
Colorado River Basin Project 
Southwest Federal Credit Union 
Neighborsations 
Stories from a Slow Food Nation 
Packard Center: Fiesta 5K 
United for Zero