Information Submission Instructions

We are accepting responses to a brief set of questions (linked above) by 10:00 am Pacific Time on Monday, April 6, 2026. The questions in the online form are listed below, for easy reference. 

• Summary of your background for the project. How can your specific skills and experience lead to a successful outcome for this project?

• Why this project? What specifically about Next River and the Freedom Hotline campaign is appealing to you? 

• Three case studies particularly relevant to our project. Please provide three cases of projects you lead. Please consult the “What we’re looking for” section to better shape your case study. As needed, please make it clear which parts you (as opposed to a different vendor) were responsible for.  

• Which pieces of the campaign are you interested in working on? Please see “About the Freedom Hotline” for descriptions: 

  • Part 1 - Audio Journey + Sound Specs

  • Part 2 - Design + Build of Portable Hotline Set-up 

  • Part 3- Storytelling

• Website - A link to your website

• Location - Where in the country are you and/or your team primarily based? 

Unsure if this project is up your alley? Have questions about your submission? Email us at freedom@nextriver.org

About Next River

Next River is an institute for practicing the future. We pursue cultural transformation on a generational timeline by engaging people in the beliefs, narratives, and practices that support collective wellbeing. As an act of survival and imagination, we’re invested in shifting national beliefs and practices of freedom in the United States from individualistic to interconnected.

As part of this shift, we are running a two-year campaign we’re calling the Freedom Hotline.

About our Freedom Hotline Campaign

America needs to hear a new story about itself; a story truer than the one that tells us independence is what makes us free. Self-sufficiency is a fallacy—no one survives, much less thrives, in isolation—and the toxic individualism stoked by this false notion of freedom is materially, emotionally, and spiritually corrosive: promoting scarcity and zero-sum mindsets, resource hoarding, and disconnection. 

We need a story built on the indisputable fact of our interdependence that can guide us toward our instincts to connect, care, and protect each other. This project is dedicated to shining a light on that story from the experiences of everyday people, with the vision of sharing it back with Americans to galvanize action toward a just, equitable, and connected future for this country.

The goal of the Freedom Hotline campaign is to gather stories, thoughts, reflections, and projections of freedom, independence, and interdependence via a telephone-like interactive audio experience.  We are looking for creative partners to work with Next River to create the overarching experience of the Freedom Hotline and refine the best way to gather the kinds of stories we need to challenge the dominant understanding of freedom as independence. 

As conceived, the Freedom Hotline will be a portable, interactive audio experience that is visually compelling and functionally dynamic. We are seeking creative collaborators ready to:

• Design a provocative, intimate audio experience that prompts participants to share their own stories of interconnected freedom

  • Including a user-centered design approach to the entire experience

  • Including seamlessly connecting the storytelling, audio, physical, and aesthetic design of the campaign 

• Generate a set of creative guidelines and technical specifications to inform the Freedom Hotline experience, including physical set-up for the “phone booth,” sound and audio specifications, and visual design 

• Coordinate with Next River and additional contractors to ensure seamless integration across the experience

• Participate in learning and reflection meetings run by the Next River team

We want someone to work with us across the duration of the campaign, which we are roughly planning in the following seasons:  

• Spring + Summer 2026

  • Champion the initial design and development (refining the questions, honing the audio experience, determining the physical design)

• Summer + Fall 2026

  • Based on the learnings from the Spring, our partner will pilot the physical hotline at a select set of Next River events and network gatherings, ensuring we are capturing high-quality audio, adjusting the design based on real-world feedback, and making sure the whole thing looks and works beautifully. 

• Winter 2026 + Spring 2027

  • Finally, after successfully bringing the Freedom Hotline to various sites across the country, our partner will work with us to produce a few pieces of short-form content that convey the campaign's power and potential. 

As a dynamic project with various moving parts, we are seeking collaborators who want to shape the full experience of the hotline, even if they are not directly responsible for executing on each piece. While we expect to work with our selected partner(s) to set the final process, our initial expectations are that this project would be broken up as follows and generate the following deliverables: 

(Part 1) Audio Journey + Sound Specs 

Developing the most effective and dynamic way to get at the content we need with the audio quality we want

• Budget range: $45,000- $60,000

• Deliverables: 

  • Generate a provocative, intimate audio experience that prompts users to share their own stories of interconnected freedom

  • Run three focus groups that test and refine the audio journey experience

  • Develop a set of design specs to inform the physical hotline setup

(Part 2) Design + Build of Portable Hotline Set-up 

Making a beautiful, functional hotline experience ready to criss-cross the U.S.

• Budget range: $75,000- $90,000

• Deliverables: 

  • Build a portable hotline incorporating critical project factors, which include but are not limited to:

    • Aesthetics

    • Transport

    • Audio recording quality

  • Provide refinements to the built phone booth after on-site usability testing 

(Part 3) Storytelling 

Top-notch branding that wraps around compelling content to extend the phone booth experience 

• Budget range: $20,000-$30,000

• Deliverables: 

  • Branding for the Freedom Hotline campaign overall, including design assets for the campaign that can be used across web and social 

  • 3 pieces of short-format audio content that give an online audience a sense of what came through in the in-person phone booth

  • A 30-second promotional video 

  • Coordination with the Next River team on building out a Freedom Hotline page on our SquareSpace site
    

What we’re looking for

We strongly encourage people who identify as Black, Indigenous, queer, transgender, and/or have lived experience of being low-income, unhoused, incarcerated, and/or doing sex work to apply. We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply, knowing decisions concerning the contractor relationship will be made without regard to age, race, ethnicity, color, religion, disability, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, and marital status.

We do not anticipate that submissions will reflect every skill listed here. We encourage you to apply if any significant piece of this project seems like a fit for you. 

We’re looking for collaborators who have

• A demonstrated history of developing dynamic creative projects and getting them out into the world. You have practiced skill in successfully creating new initiatives and shepherding them from idea to reality.

• Strong collaboration and project management skills with experience navigating the balance of artistic vision and organizational needs including working within the confines of budgets and timelines.

• Human-centered design experience that honors people’s innate wisdom and encourages generative processes. 

• The skills and desire to make the revolution irresistible. 

• Design savviness that translates across online and in-person environments. 

• Impeccable audio production and editing skills that deliver high-impact content. 

• A collaborative approach ready to welcome a diversity of views, experiences, and perspectives. 

• A deep bench of collaborators. We don’t imagine this as a solo project. We will be relying on our collaborator(s) to bring in additional team members with the skills needed to realize the ambitious vision of this campaign. 

• A passion for social justice work and a deep understanding of and fluency in intersectionality about race, gender, and class. You are committed to ending oppression and helping us get free.

• Practiced emotional intelligence. You know yourself well—your strengths and areas of growth, what you need and what your boundaries are, and what you can and can’t do.

• A clear communication style in both written and verbal contexts. 

• An understanding and enthusiasm for abolition, anarchy, socialism, mutual aid, and/or cooperatives would be a plus, but is not required.