T-Shirts for a Cause: Inspirational Examples and Design Ideas
Do you have a good cause that you want to promote? Support a charity or nonprofit organization by designing and selling t-shirts for a cause.
Use captivating apparel to encourage others to support the humanitarian cause you care about while donating part of your profits.
To get you started and give you some ideas for charity t-shirts, we’ve compiled a list of t-shirt examples supporting several vital movements.
Find inspiration, get to know the ideas behind each shirt and the initiatives they support, and make your own t-shirt with Printify.
T-Shirts for a Cause – 14 Creative and Inspirational Examples
There’s no shortage of good causes that various communities care about. People show their support in multiple ways with t-shirt designs as an effective method, whether it’s human rights, gun control, mental health, or standing up against violence.
We’ve compiled a list of 14 creative t-shirt examples that support important causes to inspire your own designs.
1. Honeycomb Heart
(The BeCause Mission)
About the cause: The BeCause Mission focuses on environmental protection, donating 5% of all proceeds from t-shirt sales to ecological nonprofits and planting ten trees for every order.
Our first example includes a beautiful graphic of a honeycomb heart that promotes environmental protection, focusing on the health of pollinators. The artistic design draws inspiration from nature, making it a great addition to any outdoorsy wardrobe.
Check out our article on graphic design tips to create a t-shirt that looks just as nice.
2. Maternal Health Is a Human Right
(Every Mother Counts)
About the cause: Every Mother Counts is a nonprofit organization focused on ensuring safe, equitable, and respectful pregnancy and childbirth for mothers worldwide.
Every human being deserves proper healthcare, and moms are certainly no exception. This type of apparel highlights the importance of maternal health and shows support to mothers around the world with a clear statement.
3. In My Self-Care Era
(Self-Care Is for Everyone)
About the cause: Self-Care Is for Everyone normalizes conversations about mental health and highlights the importance of looking after yourself. They donate at least 10% of their net profits to mental health organizations and suicide prevention nonprofits.
Text and typography are perfect for t-shirt designs that support charity organizations – they get the message across instantly and with many variations.
With a double-sided print, this t-shirt brings both design and functionality with 100 self-care tips on the back.
4. Pride Ride
(The Trevor Project)
About the cause: The Trevor Project is a nonprofit organization that works on crisis intervention and suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth.
This t-shirt features a tasteful combination of text and graphics. The colorful heart in the design symbolizes each individual’s unique personality and characteristics, highlighting the message that every person has the right to be and feel free just the way they are.
If you want to create a similar design but don’t know where to start, check out our list of 11 t-shirt design software you should try.
5. Ban Ban Ban
(Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund)
About the cause: The main mission of the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund is to end gun violence and promote safer communities.
This t-shirt features a very powerful design and gets its message across instantly. Typography t-shirts offer a great way to be creative with the cause you support. For example, this design includes both the cause of the problem and the solution for it, displayed together.
6. Climate Change Is Real
(Natural Resources Defense Council)
About the cause: The Natural Resources Defense Council is a nonprofit environmental advocacy group whose purpose is to safeguard the Earth, its people, plants, and animals.
Although a t-shirt may highlight a critical issue, it can also have a subtle design. The left chest is a classic spot for images and illustrations on clothes, and this shirt utilizes it perfectly. With subtle images in the main message, this tee’s graphics also reflect the cause.
Check out our t-shirt design placement guide to learn how to utilize your visuals in several ways.
7. Arts Advocate
(Broadway Bridges)
About the cause: Broadway Bridges is an initiative aimed at providing every tenth grader of NYC public schools with the chance to see a live Broadway show.
Some t-shirts are straight to the point and clearly show what cause you support – with this one as an excellent example. For every shirt sold, 25% of the proceeds are allocated to a nonprofit focused on sending NYC high school students to a Broadway show before graduation.
8. Phenomenal Woman
(Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign)
About the cause: The Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign is a female-powered brand that brings awareness to social causes in support of women’s rights.
A simple typography design is often all that’s required to send the right message to the world. This t-shirt is a perfect wardrobe addition for anyone who identifies as female.
Want to create something similar but unsure of where to start? Check out our article on creating a best-selling t-shirt design.
9. You Are Not the Boss of V
(The National Network of Abortion Funds)
About the cause: The National Network of Abortion Funds strives to eliminate financial, logistical, cultural, and political barriers to abortion access.
A play on the phrase – you are not the boss of me – that doesn’t require any further explanation. Strong causes require strong messaging, and a text design like this one is very clear and powerful.
Want to create a powerful text design for your own humanitarian cause? Do it with Printify’s Product Creator.
10. Be Your Breast Self
(The Get In Touch Foundation)
About the cause: The Get In Touch Foundation is a nonprofit that focuses on providing free and accessible information about breast health, empowering women to take care of their well-being in a simple and routine way.
This t-shirt features a very creative design that combines illustration with text. It matches the cause it supports perfectly – the visuals are placed on the chest area, and the pink color is usually associated with breast cancer awareness.
The text also includes a play on words, making it seem lighthearted while retaining a serious message.
11. New York, New York
(Women in Need)
About the cause: Win (Women in Need) is the largest provider of shelter and critical services for homeless women and their children in New York City, housing nearly 10% of the homeless families in NYC and helping them transition to their own homes.
When it comes to raising funds for an important cause, the better the design, the more money you can raise. This New York, New York t-shirt, with its beautiful color combination, is definitely a bestseller.
Check out our article on the best t-shirt and ink color combinations to create your next t-shirt design.
12. Protect Them All
(The National Parks Conservation Association)
About the cause: The National Parks Conservation Association is aimed at protecting and enhancing public lands within the United States for present and future generations.
There’s no need to overcomplicate things when designing a t-shirt in support of an important cause. Sometimes, you only need simple text that works with different colors and apparel styles.
Our detailed article on t-shirt fonts will help you come up with the perfect tee design.
13. I Read Banned Books
(The American Library Association)
About the cause: The American Library Association is the oldest and largest library association in the world. It focuses on the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship.
If you want your t-shirt to have a bit more flair, try combining text elements with images. This shirt is a great example of that, but keep in mind that using more than two visual elements could make the t-shirt design look too cluttered.
Our graphic design tips for Print on Demand will help you get started on your next bestselling design.
14. *Add to Resume: Raising a Human
(Black Mamas Matter Alliance)
About the cause: The Black Mamas Matter Alliance is a cross-sectoral black women-led alliance that works on ensuring all black women have respect, rights, and resources before, during, and after pregnancy.
This is another clever t-shirt design that’s directly linked to the cause it supports. Raising a person is no easy feat, and the text design celebrates mothers and everything they do for their children.
Now that we’ve examined 14 original and creative t-shirt designs supporting various causes, it’s time to learn how to make one yourself.
How to Make T-Shirts for a Cause in 4 Steps
When you’re ready to design t-shirts for charity organizations, count on Printify’s easy-to-use platform to make the process a breeze.
Let’s go over the four simple steps to help you get started.
1. Select a T-Shirt
After you’ve signed up with Printify, you’ll first need to decide on a t-shirt for your design.
Printify’s Product Catalog offers dozens of t-shirt options and styles for every need. Pick between men’s, women’s, and children’s apparel, or go with a unisex t-shirt.
T-shirts come in various sizes and colors, and you can pick between different materials. Super soft organic cotton or moisture-wicking polyester – the choice is yours.
When selecting a product, pay attention to which Print Providers offer that shirt. Compare their production and shipping costs – Printify has over 80 partners around the world, so we’re confident you’ll find the perfect fit.
2. Decide on the Design Elements
Consider what you’d like to see on your t-shirt and what other supporters would want to wear.
Create a logo tee, use a text design, or go with more artistic visuals – whatever you decide, make sure the design fits the cause. T-shirts of this kind are often simple, with the message they convey taking top priority.
As you saw in the examples, you can get creative with puns and clever statements and use the placement of the designs to your advantage.
To get started, read our article on creating a best-selling t-shirt design.
3. Create a Design
Once you’ve picked a shirt and decided on the design, it’s time to put it all together.
Our free and easy-to-use Product Creator lets you create any t-shirt design you want. If you already have your visuals, just drag and drop them onto the shirt and adjust the look.
You can also create a design from scratch. Use our built-in Text Editor to make typography designs, or try our Shutterstock integration to access thousands of images and illustrations.
To create more advanced designs, check out our t-shirt design software suggestions. And if you don’t feel like designing the visuals yourself, contact freelancers on sites like Fiverr and Upwork to create beautiful designs for you.
4. Start Selling
All that’s left is to start selling your t-shirts.
Printify connects with all major online marketplaces and eCommerce platforms. Sell shirts on Etsy, Shopify, Wix, and eBay. To find out more, explore our integrations page.
Connecting your online store with Printify only takes minutes. As soon as you make a sale, we send it to production and ship it directly to your customer.
There are no upfront costs. You’re only charged when you make a sale. Set the price of your t-shirts however high or low you want – the bigger the profit margin, the more you can donate to the cause you support.
Design T-Shirts for a Good Cause
T-shirts are great for spreading knowledge about important causes and can help fund charity organizations and nonprofits. Mixing a clever design with a strong message is a great formula for making sales and raising awareness.
Use Printify to design and sell custom t-shirts for a good cause. There are no upfront costs, and we take care of the production and shipping. Start creating fashionable products with a purpose today!
Make It Happen Today!
Written by
Jānis Bute
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