Do good work
Give your time, skills and work free for charitable causes. As well as the obvious benefits for the cause this is especially useful for meeting new and influential people. These types of projects often enable you to have more creative freedom and won’t harm your reputation or conscience. Do a good job here and not only will it warm your cockles, it might bring you some attention of the financially liquid parties in need of some design advice. It’s a classic win-win situation.