Been the sole designer for almost 5 years. I'm ready to get out of this org and into a bigger team. What do I need to make this happen for me?

Almost 5 yrs into working for a very large non profit as the only designer on their marketing/comms team. I really love my team but I am burnt the fuck out.

We work with an agency for larger campaigns, and they do really strong work. But the day-to-day design grind is all me: newsletters, flyers, print pieces, vendor coordination, production work, layout updates, multilingual materials, random internal requests, etc.

I don’t think I’m strictly a production designer, but a huge amount of my role is production because that’s what the organization needs most. I have a background in editorial/publishing, and I really enjoy our newsletter work. I also care a lot about multilingual design and am trying to push the org toward using a real translation/localization partner because we work across multiple languages.

What I’m struggling with is that I want to grow creatively and strategically, but I don’t have much time or energy left to ideate or build bigger, more conceptual work. I’d love to be on a larger design team, but having worked solo for most of my career, I feel both very capable and also kind of stunted.

For designers who have moved from solo in-house roles into stronger design teams or more senior creative roles: what skills, portfolio pieces, or ways of thinking helped you get to the next level? What should I be building now so I’m not just seen as “the person who can get everything done,” but as someone ready for more creative and strategic work?