Design Impact

About Design Impact

Design Impact (DI) is a nonprofit consulting firm focused on organizational and systems change. We work across sectors with partners in healthcare, employment, education, housing, food access, and more. We use co-design, a problem-solving approach that strives to actively and equitably involve all impacted communities. To achieve just outcomes in communities, we must redistribute power to the people our systems were designed to exclude. Co-design puts this intention into action and invites traditional leaders and decision-makers to design with communities, not for.

DI’s team comprises researchers, designers, educators, organizers, facilitators, healers, entrepreneurs, administrators, and visionaries. The staff and board are BIPOC majority and represent diverse lived experiences, identities, and geographies. and have skills, experience, and knowledge across multiple sectors and issues. 

Through DI’s work, individuals, families, and communities are building power with organizations and systems. Through multi-faceted partnerships, we have seen and documented increases in equity, shared power, and trauma-informed, culturally responsive practices, policies, and programs. DI’s change process and facilitation transform the mindsets and behaviors of leadership teams and staff within the organizations and systems we partner with by inviting the community to lead authentically. This drives proximity to the issue with those who lack the resources and power to enact meaningful and sustained change that repairs harm. This process ensures the results truly reflect what impacted groups want and need.

Here are a few case studies that demonstrate our work and impact locally and nationally: https://d-impact.org/impact/

Our Giving Project: 

Co-Design Community Leadership Development Program

DI is raising funds to launch our new co-design leadership development program. This project will equip community leaders across the region and nation with capacity-building, coaching, and technical assistance tools rooted in our co-design framework. We will launch this leadership institute in 2024. The leadership cohort will include under-resourced community based organizations and grassroots leaders seeking support to advance and resource their projects, organizations, and/or coalitions.

Donations are welcome from partners inside and outside of Cincinnati. Our program will serve participants locally and nationally.

Background

This new leadership institute is modeled after Studio C, a successful design studio co-developed and implemented from 2014- 2017, in partnership with the United Way of Greater Cincinnati. The United Way wanted to support Cincinnati-based nonprofit agencies that desired to approach their work differently. As the lead facilitator and curriculum developer, DI created an ongoing workshop series to teach nonprofits how to tackle complex issues using creative problem-solving methods. DI developed dozens of new tools and a curriculum based on our Theory of Change (creativity, equity, and community leadership) to enact meaningful and sustainable social change for individual and organizational participants. DI also coached dozens of teams to launch bold, interesting prototypes to test their ideas. In three years, over 100 nonprofit organizations walked into Studio C with sticky challenges and walked away with new perspectives, fresh ideas, and more resources, tools, and connections.

DI’s team comprises researchers, designers, educators, organizers, facilitators, healers, entrepreneurs, administrators, and visionaries. The staff and board are BIPOC majority and represent diverse lived experiences, identities, and geographies. and have skills, experience, and knowledge across multiple sectors and issues. 

Through DI’s work, individuals, families, and communities are building power with organizations and systems. Through multi-faceted partnerships, we have seen and documented increases in equity, shared power, and trauma-informed, culturally responsive practices, policies, and programs. DI’s change process and facilitation transform the mindsets and behaviors of leadership teams and staff within the organizations and systems we partner with by inviting the community to lead authentically. This drives proximity to the issue with those who lack the resources and power to enact meaningful and sustained change that repairs harm. This process ensures the results truly reflect what impacted groups want and need.

Community Impact and Benefit:

This leadership institute will provide tools, resources, and a co-design framework to help advance community goals and address some of the most challenging issues. 

This leadership institute will provide a space for community building and peer knowledge exchange to connect, align, and strategize for greater change, connection and impact.